deeply-moved audience.




CHAPTER V.


The party, meanwhile, that had left the ship, were passing the night
with old Jacob on Torungen. They had tried first to beat out to the
larger island, but the sea had risen, darkness had set in, and it had
soon become evident that it was no longer pleasure-sailing for a boat
with ladies in it. They had determined, therefore, rather than go about
for home, and lose the whole sporting expedition, which was to have
lasted for two or three days, to spend the night on Little Torungen and
see what the morning would do for them.

Great was old Jacob's astonishment, it may readily be supposed, when
there came in the late evening a knocking at the door, and he saw by the
light from the hearth no less than six grand folk come streaming in,
with two ladies amongst them. He shaded his eyes with his hand, and
looked at them in mute amazement.

As for Elizabeth, if it had been a train of fairies that had suddenly
appeared, they could not have occasioned her more terror and curiosity.
It was getting near bedtime, and she had been sitting half-asleep over
the fire, and perhaps her suddenly awakened excitement lent a more than
usual animation and attraction to a pair of eyes and a face that would
nowhere have passed unnoticed; for Carl Beck, who was at the head of the
party, seemed positively fascinated, and could not take his eyes off