Strength from fear doth Eric gather,
Wide the cabin door he threw--
Lo! the face of his dead father,
Stern and still, confronts his view!
Stately as in life he bore him,
Seated--motionless and grand,
On the blotted page before him
Lingers still the livid hand!

XI.

What sad entry was he making,
When the death-stroke fell at last?
"Is it then God's will, in taking
All, that I am left the last?
I have closed the cabin doorway,
That I may not see them die:--
Would our bones might rest in Norway,--
'Neath our own cool Northern sky!"

XII.

Then the ghastly log-book told them
How-in some accursed clime,
Where the breathless land-swell rolled them,
For an endless age of time--
Sudden broke the plague among them,
'Neath that sullen Tropic sun;
As if fiery scorpions stung them--