I perceived a group of some eight or ten people standing at the open rail which protected the edge of the raised deck in the sternmost portion of the ship. Their gaze was intently fixed upon us as we approached. Some of them were ladies. Along the line of the ship’s bulwarks were many heads watching us. A tall man in a frock coat with brass buttons, detaching himself from the group in the after part, called to the young officer, who replied; but their speech was in the language of the sea, and I did not understand it. But even as we approached, a ladder was dropped over the ship’s side; the young officer mounted, and then extended his hands to assist me up the steps, and very quickly I was transferred from the boat on to the deck of the ship. I was left for some minutes alone; for, after the young mate had helped me to climb on board, he descended a ladder that conducted to the raised deck, on which were several ladies and gentlemen, and, touching his cap to the tall man in the uniform frock coat, he entered into conversation, both of them looking towards me as they talked. A large number of persons of both sexes--sixty or seventy in all, I dare say--thronged that part of the deck where I had entered the ship, and whilst I stood alone they gathered close about me, staring and whispering. They were of the emigrant class, the bulk of them rudely and poorly attired. A tawny-coloured woman, with braided black hair and eyes of an Egyptian duskiness, after staring at me awhile, exclaimed, ‘Delicate Jesus, what a face! Shall I tell the sweet lady’s fortune? And, gorgeous angels! look how her head is bound up.’ ‘Hold yer tongue!’ cried a huge red-headed Irish woman, who had been surveying me with her arms akimbo. ‘Pace ye hay-then!’ she exclaimed, letting fall her arms and talking with her hands clasped in a posture of supplication, ‘can’t ye tell who she is? She’s a sister of mercy, and I know the order she belongs to. Sister, d’ye spake English? If you spake nothing but French, then give me your blessin’ in French. Pull out the blessed crucifix from the pocket in which you have hidden it that ye mightn’t lose it in the dreadful shipwreck, and bless me. I haven’t heard a prayer since I’ve been on board. Oh! sake the place for a howly minute only of his sainted riverence, Father Murphy, me confessor that I shall never see again--oh, that I shall never see again!--and bless me.’ She spoke loudly, but in the most wailing voice that can be imagined, and when she ceased there was a sort of thrusting and shoving of a number of men and women to get near me, as though, poor souls! they desired to participate with the tall, red-haired virago in the prayer she had asked me to pronounce. But whilst I stood surveying the rough and eager faces with alarm, the young mate came from the upper deck and said, ‘Will you please step this way?’