d of them we formed a raft which supported us
both. By the time we were seated on it the ship was far away, and it
seemed impossible that in the dangerous neighbourhood in which I knew
that we were, the captain would venture to return on the mere chance of
finding us, should we indeed be alive. Our prospect outwardly was
gloomy indeed, though we kept up hope. I was sorry when I thought that
we should be lost; that Tom had, as I fancied, thrown away his life for
my sake. However, we will not talk of that now. We were drifting, that
was certain, and might drift on shore, or we might be driven against a
reef, when we must be lost. It was now night, though there was light
enough to distinguish the dark white-crested seas rising up around us,
and the inky sky overhead. Still we knew that there was the Eye of Love
looking down on us through that inky sky, and that though the rest of
the world was shut out from us, we were not shut out from Him, without
whose knowledge not a sparrow falls to the ground. I say this to you,
dear father and mother, because I wish to show my brothers and sisters
the effect of your teaching. I wished to live, but I was prepared to
die. The water was warm, and as we had had supper just before I fell
overboard we were not hungry, so that our physical sufferings were as
yet not great. Hour after hour passed by; the raft drove on before the
wind and sea. We supposed that it must be near dawn, for it seemed as
if we had been two whole nights on the raft, when we both heard the
sound of breakers. Our fate would soon thus be decided. As far as we
were able, we gazed around when we reached the summit of a sea. There
were the breakers; we could see the white foam flying up like a vast
waterspout against the leaden sky. We were passing it though, not
driving against it. A current was sweeping us on. The dawn broke. As
the light increased our eyes fell on a grove of cocoa-nut trees, rising
it seemed directly out of the water. The current was driving us near
them. We sat up and eagerly watched the shore; we had of ourselves no
means of forcing on the raft a point towards it, or in any degree faster
than we were going. Had we been driven directly towards it, on the
weather side, which, in our eagerness, we might have wished, we should
probably have been dashed to pieces; but the current took us round to
the lee side, and finally drifted us into a little bay where we safely
got on shore. You