She stands by the small dinghy, straight-backed and proud, a stunning woman despite the silver in her hair and the deep lines carved around her eyes and mouth. Her back is to the ocean, and it is impossible to discern her thoughts as she surveys the crowd before her.
The mood is solemn, her unruly subjects unusually quiet. Rosalind Gibbs is crying, tears streaming silently down her weathered cheeks.
"Mother--" That is Little Will. He is near fifty now, a big-bellied bear of a man. "Mother, you don't have to do this."
She takes his face in her hands, gently. Her face is flushed with fever, but her eyes are calm. "I will die at sea," she says. "That is the only way."
She kisses his cheeks, rests her hand briefly on her granddaughter's tousled head, and climbs into the little boat. Two young men lend their shoulders to push her free of the sand and she strikes out with long, practiced strokes toward the horizon.
She does not look back.