"
Here she was seized with a paroxysm of nervous tremors that convulsed
her frame most fearfully, and completely belied her words. Becker
rushed forward and held her firmly in his arms.
"God give me strength!" he murmured. "Go, my children, where your duty
calls you; go, my friend, do not prolong this terrible scene an
instant longer."
Not another word was spoken, the pinnace was unmoored; Fritz, Jack,
and Willis embarked. When at some little distance from the shore,
there was just light enough for Fritz to notice that his father was
directing the feeble steps of his mother in the direction of Falcon's
Nest. In a few moments more all the objects on shore were one confused
mass of unfathomable shadow. The pinnace dropped anchor at Shark's
Island, where some few final preparations for the voyage had to be
made. Fritz here took a pen and wrote:
"We part. We are gone. When you read this letter, the sea, for some
distance, will extend between us. We shall live and move elsewhere,
but our hearts still with you. We wish that Ernest and Frank would
erect a flagstaff on the spot where we last parted with our parents.
It may be to us what the celestial standard bearing the scroll, _in
hoc signo vinces_ was to the Emperor Constantine. The place is already
sacred, and may be hallowed by your prayers for us.
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