Page:The Swiss Family Robinson - 1851.djvu/384

Rh appeared with all on board. The plank on which I and my daughters were fixed alone floated, and I saw nothing but death and desolation round me."

Madame Hirtel paused, almost suffocated by the remembrance of that awful moment.

"Poor woman!" said my wife, weeping, "it is five years since this misfortune. It was at the same time as our shipwreck, and was doubtless caused by the same storm. But how much more fortunate was I! I lost none that were dear to me, and We even had the vessel left for our use. But, my dew, unfortunate friend, by what miracle were you saved?"

"It was He who only can work miracles," said the missionary, "who cares for the widow and the orphan, and without whose word not a hair of the head can perish, who at that moment gave courage to the Christian mother."

"My strength," continned she, "was nearly exhausted, when, after being tossed about by the furious waves, I found myself thrown upon what I supposed to be a sand-bank, with my two children. I envied the state of my husband and son. If I had not been a mother, I should have wished to have followed them; but my two girls lay senseless at my side, and I was anxious, as I perceived they still breathed, to recover them. At the moment M. Hirtel pushed the raft into the water, he threw upon it a box bound with iron, which I grasped mechanically, and still held, when we were left on shore. It was not locked, yet it was with some difficulty, in my confined position, that I succeeded in opening it. It contained a quantity of gold