A man came to me, the mere shadow of a man and asked for some soothing sweet for his cough. He was a Montenegrin and had been a stalwart soldier in the army of his prince, in whose domain the white plague is practically unknown. He, too, carried money home; more money than any man in his village in the Black Mountains had ever possessed. It was earned in the iron works of an Ohio town, in a pit so full of flying metal, ground from rough surfaces, that every breath carried destruction to his lungs. The sight of this man recalled the conversation at the breakfast table, and I looked for the hospital. Two stories below the steerage deck I found the contagious ward, and upon iron cots lay the three dying men, mere shadows of men except the eyes. They were still the eyes of flesh, grown larger seemingly, through suffering, which was all too real. Nearest the door, and nearest death apparently, was the Greek. He looked almost happy; for he had cheese, the cheese of Greece, which my opposite neighbour at table was feeding him bit by bit. He ate and ate, and called for more. Poor fellow! His soul had already forgotten the glory of Athens; but his craving stomach had a long memory; it remembered the cheese of Greece. Stolidly looking at the iron ceiling from which hung the huge sweat drops of the labouring ship, lay a dying Slav. The racial marks of his face were almost obliterated, and one could with difficulty recognize the Slav, except by his silence in suffering. My hands touched his; and although they were mere skin and bone, the marks of heavy labour were still upon them. His memory had not quite faded; for between panting breaths he told me of the village in Hungary from which he had gone, a lusty youth; of the old Matka he had left behind, of the sea voyage and then of his work in the mines. It was "Prach, prach" (dust, dust), he said. He was sure that when the air of the Tatra mountains filled his lungs again, he would get well. Did he want anything? "Yes, palenka." His native white, biting drink. Oh, if he just had palenka! "Wouldn't whiskey do as well?" "Yes, anything that gives strength; but palenka would be the best." There was a third man, an Italian of the Calabrian group to which Tony and John Sullivan belonged. There was, or there had been, a third man; for even as we turned towards him, a rattle in his hollow chest gave sign that he had crossed to another harbour than that for which he had embarked. We would have lingered; but death brought the nurse and the doctor, with much muttering and many complaints against us, and threats of quarantine. After all, it was good to reach the noisy deck, even the deck of the steerage--and life. "Tombola! Tombola!" the Calabrian peasants shouted, shaking a pasteboard box of dice. "Tre, sette, dieci,--terno!" the lucky winner screamed, gathering up the greasy soldi piled on the greasy deck.