She
was slowly going through this process, and wondering how long it would
be before her shoulders ceased to smart from the effects of the
tattooing, when Dick came running in without going through the formality
of knocking.
"Oh, Auntie! Auntie!" he sang out in high glee, "here's a big ship coming
sailing along. Is it Mummy and Daddie coming to fetch Dick?"
Augusta sank back faint with the sudden revulsion of feeling. If there
was a ship, they were saved--snatched from the very jaws of death. But
perhaps it was the child's fancy. She threw on the body of her dress;
and, her long yellow hair--which she had in default of better means been
trying to comb out with a bit of wood--streaming behind her, she took the
child by the hand, and flew as fast as she could go down the little rocky
promontory off which Bill and Johnnie had met their end. Before she got
half-way down it, she saw that the child's tale was true--for there,
sailing right up the fjord from the open sea, was a large vessel. She was
not two hundred yards from where she stood, and her canvas was being
rapidly furled preparatory to the anchor being dropped.
Thanking Providence for the sight as she never thanked anything before,
Augusta sped on till she got to the extreme point of the promontory, and
stood there waving Dick's little cap towards the vessel, which moved
slowly and majestically on, till presently, across the clear water, came
the splash of the anchor, followed by the sound of the fierce rattle of
the chain through the hawse-pipes.
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