"I do not think we have been here longer than to-day," she replied. "I do not know exactly. It was early in the morning when our ship struck the rocks, but it was broad daylight when I came to my senses on the shore. The tide was coming in, it was very high, and now it must have been going out for nearly four hours, so I think we must have been cast on shore this morning."
"Then my husband may still be alive, I must seek him." With those words, she rose to her feet, but nearly fainted with the effort.
"Your child is sleeping," said Anna. "Let me support you, if you will attempt to walk. Tell me your husband's name, that I may call it aloud; these rocks are very rugged and I can send my voice into places among them, that it would be impossible to go into."
"Colonel Carleton," she replied.
"Lean on me, Mrs. Carleton. Shall we go down this way?"
The tide had carried out the mass of floating bodies to which the child had pointed at noon, but numbers of others still remained in all directions. Tottering and staggering among the dead, Mrs. Carleton continued her search, until she had looked into every ghastly face that lay there.
"Now will you call aloud for me," she said, "for I cannot, my strength is gone."
Anna called, but the only sound that came back was the echo of her own voice from the forest and the heavy rolling of the sea. They returned in silence to the child, who was still asleep. The sun had nearly set, when all at once a rich, bright glow from the west rose behind the forest and flooded every object with golden light. Looking out to sea eastward, they observed only a few miles away many islands, some of them covered with forests down to the water's edge.
"Where can we be," they both ejaculated at the same time. There was no habitation visible on any of them, nor any smoke rising from them.
"These trees remind me of Norway," said Anna. "Do you think we can be in Norway?"