Mark Seaworth | Page 2

texture. She is alive, but faint and weak; and, by her
dim eye and short-coming breath, death seems to be approaching with
stealthy strides to claim her as his own. Still, the soul is struggling to
triumph over the weakness of the flesh. With an anxious gaze she looks
beneath the awning, for there is something there which claims her
constant solicitude. She turns her gaze towards the forms of the two
seamen--she does not seem to know that they are dead. A faint cry
comes from under the awning. Again she looks towards the bow of the

boat; she sees that her companions in misery are not watching her. She
now stealthily draws from beneath the folds of her dress, where she has
carefully concealed it, a bottle of water. Did she, then, while the
seamen slept, steal the water from the cask to preserve the existence of
those committed to her fostering charge, and far more precious to her,
in her sight, than her own life? There can be no doubt she did so. She
discovers that she is not observed. There is a small tin pannikin near
her, and several pieces of biscuit. She crumbles the biscuit, as well as
she can with her weak fingers, into the pannikin, and then pours upon
them a few drops of the precious fluid. She looks at the water with
longing eyes, but will not expend even one drop to cool her parched
lips. She mixes the biscuit till it is completely softened, and then
casting another furtive glance towards the bow, unconscious that the
dead only are there, she carefully lifts up the awning. A low weak voice
utters the word "Aya;" it is that of a child, some three or four years old
perhaps; at the same time there is a plaintive cry from a younger infant.
A smile irradiates the countenance of the Indian woman, for she knows
that her charges are still alive. She leans forward, though her strength is
barely sufficient to enable her to move, and puts the food into the
mouths of the two children. The eldest, a boy, swallows it eagerly; for
though somewhat pale, his strength seems but little impaired. The
infant is a girl: she takes the mixture, so little suited to her tender years,
but without appetite; and it would appear that in a very short time her
career, just begun on earth, will be brought to a speedy close.
When the food is consumed, the nurse sinks back to her former position.
She tries to swallow a piece of the biscuit, but her parched lips and
throat refuse to receive the dry morsel, and the water she will not touch.
Again the children cry for food, and once more she goes through the
operation of preparing it for them as before; but her movements are
slower, and she now has scarcely strength to carry the food to the
mouths of the little ones.
The day passes away, the night goes by, the morning comes, and still
the calm continues. The children awake and cry out for food. The nurse
turns her languid eyes towards them, but her strength has almost gone;
she even forgets for an instant the meaning of that cry. There is a

struggle going on within her. At last her loving, faithful, and enduring
spirit overcomes for a time the weakness of her body; she prepares the
mess, and feeds the children. She gazes sorrowfully at the bottle--the
last drop of water is consumed. She leans back, her bosom heaves
faintly; the effort has been more than her failing strength would bear.
She turns her eyes towards them; they are the last objects of any earthly
thing she is destined to behold. A dimness comes stealing over them.
Her thoughts are no longer under control, her arms fall by her side, her
head droops on her chest, she has no strength to raise it. In a few hours
more the faithful nurse will have ceased to breathe, and those young
children will be left alone with the dead on the wild waste of waters.
But, reader, do not for one moment suppose that therefore they are
doomed to perish. There is One above, the eternal, all-powerful God of
goodness and love, who is watching over those helpless infants. His
arm can stretch to the uttermost parts of the earth, and over the great
waters: even now it is put forth to shield them, though we see it not.
Even without a human hand to administer their food, in that open boat
on the wide sea, over which a storm might presently rage, while billows
may rise, threatening to overwhelm them, far away from land or living
beings but themselves, those children are as secure, if so God