Ships did not often come to this dreadful and uninhabited coast, and if one should happen to put in there, it was exceedingly probable that it would touch at some other point and never see her or her flag.

And then in time the end would come.

The supply of eggs would fail, and she would be driven to supporting life upon such birds as she could catch, till at last the child sickened and died, and she followed it to that dim land that lies beyond Kerguelen and the world.

She prayed that the child might die first.

It was awful to think that perhaps it might be the other way about: she might die first, and the child might be left to starve beside her.