" At that moment we were carried down, and as I
rose again, I caught at a spar which was floating near, and looking
after my friends, I saw them rise far to leeward; they were still
clasped in each other's arms. I would willingly have gone down if she
might have been saved; but that could not be, and I was borne far out to
sea. The fog lifted, but I was not able to make my whereabouts, and in
this condition I was left for two days, when I was picked up by a vessel
bound to Liverpool direct. I told the captain my story, and found that
we had missed our bearings, that our vessel had been wrecked upon the
Nantucket shoals. Our voyage proved to be a long and stormy one, for the
September gales took us on to the coast of Africa; and when a year after
I shipped for New York, I heard nothing of the child, and have always
supposed her little bark took her to a better land."
"And so it did!" exclaimed the weeping Natalie, holding the great rough
hand of the tar within her own; "the little bark bore her in safety to a
peaceful shore, where she was received with open arms by those who have
filled the place of her natural parents.
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