"Oh!" breathed Faith, "do you suppose it was left to starve?"
"I'm afraid so. I think the mother heard the fighting and started to run out, leaving her child safely hidden, when her husband was attacked, but was felled by a blow on the head. We saw the marks."
"Horrible!" Hope covered her eyes, and the captain sprang up.
"I ought not to have told you. It was bad enough to see it myself, hardened as I am. Now I must go. Do you want one of the women to come and stay with you?"
"No," said both, and he hurried out, but at the door was arrested by
Hope.
"One question more—did you bury them too, papa?"
"Yes."
"In the same way?"
"Yes."
She drew a long, sighing breath as he disappeared, and turning clasped Faith close with a sob of overwrought feeling. The sisters could not talk much over the hideous tale. The night was shutting down wild and stormy, and the labored motion of the good steamship already showed that she was meeting heavier seas than they had yet encountered. Yet, singularly, neither felt seasick, as yet. The intense anxiety until their father's return, and the deep interest in his narration since, had driven all physical feeling from their minds.