cabin. She remembered even then, and she wonders how foolish she was to
think of it at that time, that she wished she had put on another dress
and the baby's best clothes; and she kept praying that the house would
be spared so that he, when he returned, would have something to come to,
and it wouldn't be quite so desolate, and--how could he ever know what
had become of her and baby? And at the thought she grew sick and faint.
But she had something else to do besides worrying, for whenever the
long roots of her ark struck an obstacle, the whole trunk made half a
revolution, and twice dipped her in the black water. The hound, who kept
distracting her by running up and down the tree and howling, at last
fell off at one of these collisions. He swam for some time beside her,
and she tried to get the poor beast up on the tree, but he "acted silly"
and wild, and at last she lost sight of him forever. Then she and her
baby were left alone. The light which had burned for a few minutes
in the deserted cabin was quenched suddenly. She could not then
tell whither she was drifting. The outline of the white dunes on the
peninsula showed dimly ahead, and she judged the tree was moving in a
line with the river. It must be about slack water, and she had
probably reached the eddy formed by the confluence of the tide and the
overflowing waters of the river. Unless the tide fell soon, there was
present danger of her drifting to its channel, and being carried out to
sea or crushed in the floating drift. That peril averted, if she were
carried out on the ebb toward the bay, she might hope to strike one
of the wooded promontories of the peninsula, and rest till daylight.
Sometimes she thought she 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