Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Two).djvu/364

 the crest of one of the giant waves before taking the fearful plunge into the yawning trough before it. There is then a moment—but just a moment—of quivering, sinister stillness, strangely contrasting with the tremendous uproar which immediately preceded, and which is sure to follow it. On that first fearful night—we had just heard that a sea had washed four sailors overboard—there was such a moment of stillness unusually long—perhaps two or three seconds—during which I distinctly heard someone, probably one of the cabin boys, quietly brushing boots just outside of the cabin door—someone quietly doing a regular, simple little duty, amid the terrific turmoil of the elements threatening to engulf all of us the next moment. It was like a charm. I then felt that nothing would happen to us. I should have been profoundly ashamed of any fear.

But there were impressions of a different kind which only heightened the effect of the one just told. Among the few cabin passengers was a dentist from Brooklyn. During the same first night he appeared in the cabin with rubber shoes on his feet, a waterproof coat on his body, his hat on his head, and an umbrella in his hand, shouting that he wanted to be put ashore. So he raved for a considerable while, being thrown from one side of the cabin to the other by the rolls and jumps of the ship. At last his shrieks became so frantic and his umbrella-thrusts at the other passengers so violent that the chief-steward thought it necessary to have him locked in a state-room. He had evidently gone crazy from fright. We did not see him again for the rest of the voyage.

When the storm had subsided the weather grew very cold, and the whole ship was thickly coated with ice. It presented an almost spectral appearance as it sailed into New York Harbor. We had been, if I remember rightly, twenty-three days from