she made her way to the deck to
find that the ship was abandoned by every living soul, including her
own father; why, or under what circumstances, remained a mystery. She
retreated into the captain's cabin, which was on deck, being afraid
to go below again in the darkness, and sheltered there until the light
came. Then she went out, and though the dim, mist-laden dawn crept
forward to the forecastle, and staring over the side discovered that the
prow of the ship was fixed upon a rock, while her stern and waist, which
floated clear, heaved and rolled with every sea. As she stood thus the
vessel slipped back along the reef three feet or more, throwing her to
the deck, and thrilling her from head to foot with the most sickening
sensation she had ever experienced. Then the Trondhjem caught and hung
again, but Stella, so she wrote, knew that the end must be near, as the
ship would lift off with the full tide and founder, and for the first
time felt afraid.

"I did not fear what might come after death," went on the diary, "but I
did fear the act of death. I was so lonely, and the dim waters looked
so cold; the brown shoulders of the rocks which showed now and again
through the surges, so cruel. To be dashed by those cold waters upon
those iron rocks till the life was slowly ground out of my body! And
my father--the thought of him tormented my mind. Was he dead, or had
he deserted me? The last seemed quite impossible, for it would have
supposed him a coward, and I was sure that he would rather die than
leave me; therefore, as I feared, the first must be true. I was afraid,
and I was wretched, and I said my prayers and cried a little, while the
cold struck me through the red cloak, and the damp mist made me shiver.

"Then suddenly I remembered that it had not been the custom of my
ancestors and countrywomen of the old time to die weeping, and with the
thought some of my courage came back. I rose from the deck and stood
upon the prow of the ship, supporting myself by a rope, as many a dead
woman of my race has done before me in the hour of battle and shipwreck.
As I stood thus, believing that I was about to die, there floated into
my mind a memory of the old Norse song that my mother had taught me as
she learned it from her mother. It is called the 'Song of the Overlord,'
and for generations without count on their death-beds has been sung,
or if they were too weak to sing, whispered, by the women of my family.
Even my mother mu