When the unhappy youths found themselves alone, without sails or rudder, on the pathless ocean, they sank into each other’s arms and wept long and passionately.

At length Wilfrid lifted up his voice and heart in fervent prayer to that Almighty and merciful God, who had delivered Daniel from the lions’ den, and preserved his faithful servants, Meshach, Shadrach and Abednego, unharmed in the fiery furnace.  Prince Edwin, on the contrary, gave himself up to despair, and when he saw the king’s ship spreading her canvas to the gale, and fast receding from his sight, he uttered a cry that was heard above the uproar of the winds and waves.  Starting up in the boat, and extending his arms toward the disappearing vessel, he unwittingly lost his balance, and was in a moment ingulfed in the stormy billows.

We may imagine the anguish and terror of Wilfrid on witnessing the sad fate of his young lord, which he had no power to prevent.  Thoughts of his widowed mother’s grief for himself, too, came over his mind and filled his eyes with tears, for her, as well as for his ill-fated lord.  For himself, however, he felt no fears, even in this dreadful hour, when left companionless on the tempestuous ocean, for his trust was firm and steadfast in the mercies of his Heavenly Father.

That night the winds roared, and the waves raged mightily.  Many a gallant bark foundered in the storm, and many a skillful seaman found a watery grave before the morning dawned in the cloudy horizon.  But the frail vessel into which the unfortunate Atheling and his page had been thrust, weathered the gale and, with her lonely tenant, Wilfrid, was driven ashore at a place called Whitesande, on the coast of Picardy, in France.

When Wilfrid landed, he was drenched through and through.  He was hungry, too, and sorrowful and weary.  He knew not where he was, but he failed not to return thanks to that gracious God who had preserved him from the perils of the raging seas to which he had been so awfully exposed, and whose merciful providence, he doubted not, would guide and sustain him in the strange land whither he had been conducted.

Thus meekly, thus nobly, did the young page support himself under this fresh trial.  But when the remembrance of the unfortunate Atheling, his royal master, came over him, his heart melted within him; he bowed his face on his knees as he sat all lonely on the sea beach, and he wept aloud, exclaiming—­

“Oh, Edwin! royal Edwin! hadst thou patiently trusted in the mercy of God thou slightest, notwithstanding thy late adversity, have lived to wear the crown of thy father Edward.”  Overpowered by his emotions, he again sank upon the ground.

“Is it of Edwin of England that thou speakest, young Saxon?” asked a soft voice in the sweet familiar language of his own native land.

He raised his head and found that he was surrounded by a party of ladies, one of whom questioned him with an air of eager interest respecting the expressions he had used touching the unfortunate Prince Edwin.