"Where we doin', Mamie?" she asked, turning great eyes of wonder upon her sister.
Then Mamie found voice and breath, and, clasping the little one in her arms, shrieked aloud for help.
But none heard, although Lulu, terrified by her sister's cries, now joined her own, seeing something was wrong, though she could not yet understand their peril. For the wind, blowing as it did from the shore, carried away the sound of their voices, and floated the piteous tones far out over the sea.
Mamie. p. 174.
Farther, still farther, and faster now, as the blue waves, crisping and sparkling in the sunlight, toyed with the frail boat, and its precious, helpless freight, and tossed it from one to another, but ever carrying it farther from home!
Was there no one to see? no one to hear? Why was it that no one looked out at that time over the dancing waters, and discovered what terrible plaything they had seized upon?
Far off, so far off it seemed to poor Mamie's straining eyes, and growing each moment more distant, figures were moving upon the shore; some up and down the road; others, she could distinguish them well at first, playing croquet upon the lawns; little children, like themselves, running up and down the long piazzas of the hotels: but no one, no one, turned an eye towards their peril, or lent an ear to the frantic cries which rang from their lips.
Oh, how cruel, how cruel, it seemed!
The boat drifted onward till it was a long distance from the shore, almost in a straight line, keeping directly in the flood of sunshine which fell across the waters; and it may be that if any eye did turn seaward, it was dazzled by the blaze of light, and, even if it saw the boat, could notice nothing amiss. Kind hearts were there that would almost have stood still at the thought of the fearful peril about those little ones; feet which would have flown, hands which would have strained every nerve to rescue them. But ah! to poor Mamie the whole world seemed so heartless, so cruel!