h. Again raising the boy in his arms, he passed from the
ruined sheds and bent his steps toward Captain Brand's former dwelling.
The road was heaped with shells and sand, strewed with shoals of dead
fish and wounded or dying birds, while the wreck of a boat, mingled with
the timbers and planks of the jetty to the basin, were lying pell-mell
on the beach of the little cove. Casting his eyes around in search
of the once spacious dwelling, with its vaults, veranda, and saloon, he
could hardly at first trace a vestige of the structure. The powder,
more destructive even than the hurricane, had tossed walls and
building into a confused heap of rubbish; then came the wind and sand
on top of the rocks which had tumbled down by the concussion of the
first explosion, and then the water, packing all together as if no
habitation had ever existed there. The doctor walked slowly around
until he came to the angle where the kitchen once was, and there, three
fourths hidden beneath a mass of blackened stones and charred timber,
peered forth the white skeleton of a human being. The flesh had been
seared and burned from the face and skull by the instantaneous flash
of the powder, and there lay the remains of Babette, whitely bleached,
as if she had been thrown a lifeless corpse on the sea-beach. A few
yards below this frightful spectacle lay a number of shattered boxes
and trunks, then a confused bundle of clothes, and a sandy saturated
collection of kitchen utensils and crockery. Yes, the poor dumb woman,
the creature and witness of many a cruel scene, ignorant or uncertain
of the warning given her by the master she loved, had fallen another
tribute to his long list of victims.

The doctor only waited long enough to select a few necessary articles
from the heterogeneous heap before him, and then, with the child still
clinging contentedly to his shoulder, he returned to the chapel.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE ARK THAT JACK BUILT.

"Good heaven, befriend that little boat,
And guide her on her way!
A boat, they say, has canvas wings,
But can not fly away;
Though, like a merry singing-bird,
She sits upon the spray."

The land wind sighed and murmured; the sea-breeze wafted its rustling
influence over the waves; the long swells broke over the ledge; the
inlet flowed pure and limpid; and the gulls and sea-mews floated
gracefully over the reef, as if a hurricane had never poured its baneful
wrath upon it