“Too late! too late! I saw the ship go down myself!” exclaimed Miss Joe, beside herself with grief.
“What must I do with this here young ’oman, Miss Ally?” inquired Diogenes of his mistress.
“Take her upstairs, Diogenes, and I will go up and attend to her,” said Alice. And leaving Miss Joe and the shipwrecked sailors below, Alice followed the old negro with his burden upstairs.
But there a scene of ruin met her startled gaze. The roof had been reft from the house in the storm; the rain had poured through the ceiling of the loft and drenched the bed-chambers. One of the beds, however, being in a more protected angle of the room, was comparatively dry. This Alice turned over, and upon this the old negro was directed to lay his insensible burden.
While Alice was rubbing and chafing the cold, cold hands and feet of the shipwrecked girl, a loud cry of despair came up from below.
She hastened downstairs to know the cause.
The mate had returned from a fruitless errand. The Belle Agnes had gone down with all left on board, and among them the brave and generous Captain Hugh Hutton!
Within the next three dreadful hours, “in night and storm and darkness,” a man-child was born—son of the storm and the wreck—heir of a desert and a ruin!