"Of course I can't be lost, because I know exactly where I am. This is
Sullivan Island, and the fort is right over there. I mustn't rest but a
minute, for my father said we would start home early," she thought, and
again started on, going directly away from the fort, and over sand-hills
and into little sloping valleys farther and farther away from familiar
places.
The December day drew to a close, and dusky shadows crept over the
island. Once or twice Sylvia's wanderings had brought her back to the
shore, but not until the darkness began to gather did she really
understand that she was lost, and that she was too tired to walk much
longer. She thought of the little compass on board the Butterfly, and
wondered if a compass would help anyone find her way on land as well as
on the sea. At last she began to call aloud: "Estralla! Estralla!"
feeling almost sure that, like herself, Estralla must be wandering about
lost in the sand-hills.
It was nearly dark before she gave up trying to find her way to the
fort, and, shivering and half afraid, crawled under the scraggly
branches of some stunted trees on a sheltered slope. "My father will
come and find me, I know he will," she said aloud, almost ready to cry.
"I'll wait here, and keep calling 'Estralla,' so he will hear me."
A few moments after Sylvia started to find Estralla Mrs. Carleton had
been called to a neighbor's house. "Tell Sylvia I won't be gone long,"
she had said to Grace.
Grace did not mind being alone until Sylvia returned.
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