hildren, now
that the daylight showed them the full extent of their disaster, and
every now and then they would break forth into cries or fits of sobbing
which were pitiful to hear. Marjorie did much to calm their terrors, as
did Barbara Hatchett, both of whom showed very brave and calm; and,
indeed, the only pleasing memory of all that time of terror is the
thought of those two women, the one in all the pride of her dark beauty,
the other in all the glory of her fair loveliness, moving about like
ministering angels amongst all those people whom the sudden peril of
death had made so fearful and so helpless. The beautiful woman and the
beautiful maid--none on board had braver hearts than they!

You may imagine with what eagerness we scanned the sea for any sight of
land. But though Captain Amber searched the whole horizon with his
spy-glass, we could find nothing better than an island which lay off
from us at a distance of about two leagues, and what seemed to be a
smaller island, which lay further from us. This did not offer any great
promise of refuge to us, but as it was apparently the only hope we had
we all strove to make the best of it, and to pretend to be greatly
rejoiced at the sight of even so much land.

Captain Amber immediately ordered Hatchett to man one of the ship's
boats and to make for those islands to examine them, a task that now
presented no difficulty, for the wind had fallen away and the sea was
smooth as it had been turbulent. I would fain have gone with the boat
for the sake of the change, for I was sick at heart of the moaning and
the groaning of the poor wretches on board, but Captain Amber did not
send me, and I had no right to volunteer; and, besides, I was still
troubled by a confused sense of something that I had to tell him; some
danger that I was instinctively seeking to ward off from him--and from
her.

There was something piteous in the sight of that single boat creeping
slowly across the sea towards those distant islands, and I watched it as
it grew smaller and smaller, until it was little more than a mere speck
upon the waters.

Everything depended for us upon the fortunes of that boat, upon the
tidings that it might bring back to us. I am proud to say that my
thoughts went out across that sea to the home where my mother was, who
prayed day and night for her boy's safety, and that my lips repeated
that prayer she had taught me while I supplicated Heaven with all
humility of heart