heard voices and shouts from the river, and the bellowing of cattle and bleating of sheep.  Then again it was only the ringing in her ears and throbbing of her heart.  She found at about this time that she was so chilled and stiffened in her cramped position that she could scarcely move, and the baby cried so when she put it to her breast that she noticed the milk refused to flow; and she was so frightened at that, that she put her head under her shawl, and for the first time cried bitterly.

When she raised her head again, the boom of the surf was behind her, and she knew that her ark had again swung round.  She dipped up the water to cool her parched throat, and found that it was salt as her tears.  There was a relief, though, for by this sign she knew that she was drifting with the tide.  It was then the wind went down, and the great and awful silence oppressed her.  There was scarcely a ripple against the furrowed sides of the great trunk on which she rested, and around her all was black gloom and quiet.  She spoke to the baby just to hear herself speak, and to know that she had not lost her voice.  She thought then—­it was queer, but she could not help thinking it—­how awful must have been the night when the great ship swung over the Asiatic peak, and the sounds of creation were blotted out from the world.  She thought, too, of mariners clinging to spars, and of poor women who were lashed to rafts, and beaten to death by the cruel sea.  She tried to thank God that she was thus spared, and lifted her eyes from the baby, who had fallen into a fretful sleep.  Suddenly, away to the southward, a great light lifted itself out of the gloom, and flashed and flickered, and flickered and flashed again.  Her heart fluttered quickly against the baby’s cold cheek.  It was the lighthouse at the entrance of the bay.  As she was yet wondering, the tree suddenly rolled a little, dragged a little, and then seemed to lie quiet and still.  She put out her hand and the current gurgled against it.  The tree was aground, and, by the position of the light and the noise of the surf, aground upon the Dedlow Marsh.

Had it not been for her baby, who was ailing and croupy, had it not been for the sudden drying up of that sensitive fountain, she would have felt safe and relieved.  Perhaps it was this which tended to make all her impressions mournful and gloomy.  As the tide rapidly fell, a great flock of black brent fluttered by her, screaming and crying.  Then the plover flew up and piped mournfully as they wheeled around the trunk, and at last fearlessly lit upon it like a gray cloud.  Then the heron flew over and around her, shrieking and protesting, and at last dropped its gaunt legs only a few yards from her.  But, strangest of all, a pretty white bird, larger than a dove—­like a pelican, but not a pelican—­circled around and around her.  At last it lit upon a rootlet of the tree, quite over her shoulder.  She put out her hand and stroked its beautiful white neck, and it never appeared to move.  It stayed there so long that she thought she would lift up the baby to see it, and try to attract her attention.  But when she did so, the child was so chilled and cold, and had such a blue look under the little lashes which it didn’t raise at all, that she screamed aloud, and the bird flew away, and she fainted.