I had to keep fast hold of the arm of the man who had helped me up the steps, to save myself from falling. It was, in truth, the effect of a wild hurry of conflicting emotions; but a short stern struggle subdued the sensation, and glancing around at the men, who were staring at the women and ourselves with open mouths, I asked for the captain.

'I'm the master, sir,' said a quiet-looking, sunburnt man, who stood close to the gangway.

I grasped his hand and shook it, and then, without further preface, told him our story, briefly indeed, though I gave him all the facts.

'Well, sir,' said he, when I had done, glancing at Sir Mordaunt very respectfully, 'you've had a hard time of it, and I'm glad to have come across you. This barque is the "Princess Louise," from New Providence to Porto Rico. I hope Porto Rico isn't out of

your way?' No,' I answered. 'We should be able to get to Europe from Porto Rico without trouble.'

'Certainly,' said he. But we sighted a small boat out yonder. Does she belong to your people?'

I told him that she was a raft we had sent adrift from the island, with a board at the mast-head inscribed with the circumstances of our shipwreck; but I said nothing about the dead man on it. I then begged him to tell us what reckoning his vessel was now in, explaining that Sir Mordaunt Brookes was anxious to have the bearings of the rock on which we had been wrecked, that he might recover the remains of his wife for interment in England.

'Can you give me your course, and distance run?' said he.

I answered that it was jotted down on the after-thwart in the boat. He at once went over the side into the boat, entered the figures in a pocket-book, and returned.

6

'We'll get the bearings of your island fast enough presently,' said he. That's a good boat of yours-too good to send adrift. Here, Mr. Swift,' he sung out to a man I afterwards learnt was his chief mate, get that boat cleared out, will you, and slung aboard. You can stow her on the booms. And swing the fore-yards as soon as that job's done. Bo'sun, take charge of these two men '-indicating Tripshore and Hunter and see that they get something to eat at once. Will you follow me, ladies and gentlemen?'

He led the way into the cabin, or deck-house. We hobbled after him, for, owing to our confinement in the boat and the want of space to stretch our limbs, we had some ado to work our legs properly. The cabin was a very plain interior, with a table amidships, flanked by hair sofas, and a row of five small berths on the port side. We sat down, not because we were weary, but because we found exercise an awkward and inconvenient effort. The captain, whose name was Broach, went to the cabin door and bawled to the steward, who was among the men on deck, to put some beef and biscuit and claret upon the table. He then entered his berth, and returned with a large

chart of the Bahamas and West India islands, which I saw Sir Mordaunt devouring with his eyes, proving where his heart was.

Yesterday,' said Captain Broach, we were in such and such a position, and our position now would be here,' said he, putting his finger on the chart. You say you have been running fifty miles to the south'ard and east'ard.' He measured the distance, and exclaimed, 'Here you are; here are two cays. It is one of these, gentlemen.'

'It will be the one to the norrard,' said I.

'Then,' said he, writing down the position of the island on a piece of paper, and handing it to the baronet, this will be the latitude and longitude of it, sir.'

I reflected, and then addressing Sir Mordaunt, Those bearings,' said I, 'prove that Purchase was heavily out in his latitude as well as his longitude.'

He motioned, with an imploring gesture. For God's sake, don't recall the man!' said he. I desire,' he continued, turning to the skipper, that you will look upon us as passengers, for whose accommodation and entertainment you will charge as you think proper; though,' he said, extending his hand for the other to shake, and speaking with great emotion, no recompense we can make you will express our gratitude for the prompt and generous help you have given us.' Say nothing about it, sir,' answered the skipper, in a blunt, sailorly way. It seems hard that shipwreck should befall gentlemen like you, to whom the sea is no business; and I am very sorry indeed for the ladies '-giving them a low bow. Now, steward, bear a hand with the grub, man! Shove it on the table, can't ye?'

We had not long before eaten our breakfast in the boat, and even had we not already broken our fast, I question whether the emotions which kept our hearts hammering in our breasts would have left us any appetite for the victuals on the table. But Captain Broach begged us so heartily to eat, that we made a show of munching, just to please him. He said he had but the cabins we saw. One of them was his, and the next one the mate's, and the third abutting on that the second mate's and carpenter's. But,' said he, if you don't mind a squeeze, I think we can manage, The ladies will have that cabin' -pointing. There are two bunks in it, and we can lay a mattress on the deck.' And then he arranged for me to share the mate's cabin, Norie the second mate's, and Sir Mordaunt would have a cabin to himself.

This was

settled.

a very good arrangement, and so the matter was

We then inquired how long it would take to reach Porto Rico. "I give the "Louise" four days,' he answered, 'reckoning fine weather and breezes after this pattern. When I tell you that we left New Providence the day before yesterday at six o'clock in the evening, you'll believe the barque has got heels.'

He sat talking with us, asking questions, and, with every answer

we made him, growing more and more respectful. He told Sir Mordaunt that he would find no difficulty in chartering a small vessel to fetch Lady Brookes' body; indeed, he said, it would give him pleasure to see to that himself, for he knew a man at San Juan who owned a trading sloop, a fast vessel, that would not keep Sir Mordaunt waiting. He also told us that steamers from Liverpool, Southampton, Spain, and the United States touched at Porto Rico -how often he could not say, but often enough to serve our end.

6

And now,' said he, there's Mr. Swift and myself I'll say nothing about the second mate-plain sailors, with kits not good enough for a man to go to Court in; but such as our togs are, gentlemen, you're heartily welcome to the loan of them till you can get better. I'm only sorry,' addressing Miss Tuke, 'that we can't accommodate you ladies, in that way. But we're all men aboard the "Louise," and so you'll please take that as our excuse.'

He called the steward, to see to our cabins and supply our wants, and, bestowing a regular all-round bow upon us, he went on deck, where we could hear the men singing out as they braced round the yards and got way upon the barque.

My story is as good as ended. You have had our shipwreck, and now our rescue. But there still remains a short length of line to coil down, and I may as well leave the yarn clean and shipshape.

Imagine that two days have passed. In that time we have slept well, eaten well, pulled ourselves together. We have all of us knelt down in the cabin, and offered up hearty and earnest thanks to Almighty God for His merciful preservation of us; and now we are looking about us with tranquil hearts, which have already grown used to this new condition of life, waiting with patience for the hour when the cheery cry of 'Land oh!' shall bring us within reach of the scores of things our destitute condition demands; now and again talking of the dead; of the yacht, that the sea had scattered as the wind scatters chaff; and of our sufferings and anxieties and painful struggles on the little island. The weather remained beautiful-a constant wind blowing, though shifting occasionally to the northward and then hauling back again to the eastward, the sea calm and frosty with the breaking heads of the tiny surges, and a heaven of stainless, glorious, tropical blue.

It was the night of the second day, dating from our rescue. I had been conversing with Mrs. Stretton and Mr. Swift, the chief mate of the 'Princess Louise,' who, it turned out, had known Captain Stretton and the vessel he commanded. In another part of the deck were Norie and Miss Tuke and her uncle. The moon was standing over the sea, shedding little or no radiance upon the sky, but whitening the water under it with lines of light which looked like silver serpents, as the swaying of the swell and the fluttering of the ripples kept them moving.

I left Mrs. Stretton and the mate, and walked to the end of the short poop. The wheel was just under me, and the figure of the fellow who grasped it was so motionless, that he and the wheel and the yellow binnacle-card were more like a painting than real things. I stood drawing at a cigar, enjoying the tobacco with unspeakable relish after my long enforced abstinence, and contemplating the beautiful dreamlike picture of the barque lifting her heights of glimmering canvas into the dark air, blotting out a whole heaven of stars with her dim and ghostly cloths, amid the hollows of which, and among the delicate gear and rigging, the soft tropical breeze was whispering in notes that sounded like faint and distant voices singing. The eastern sky was glorious with stars, of such magnitude and beauty as you never behold in our northern climes, with a fine sharp whiteness, though here and there the smaller stars shone in delicate blues and in rose-colour, like the reflection of a bright flame in highly polished metal. It was a night for solitude. The seething of the thin line of foam at the vessel's sides, the occasional clank of the wheel-chains, the mysterious song of the wind up in the darkness among the pallid sails there, the leagues of black water, the starladen sky, and the moon clothing with the beauty of her soft, white, misty light a large circumference of the dark heavens, combined to produce a deep sense of peace in the heart, not without melancholy, but infinitely soothing, and to make one almost dread the intrusion of commonplace sounds.

My thoughts were full of the past, and let me say of the future likewise. A low, soft, girlish laugh from the group at the other end of the deck had set my fancy rambling, and in the short time I was permitted to stand there musing, the thoughts which swept through my mind—a commingling of shipwreck and ocean perils, and of fancies very much nearer heaven than any the deep could yield me— made a wild and singular panorama of visions.

me.

But my reverie was interrupted by Sir Mordaunt coming up to He stood at a little distance, peering, as if he was not sure, and then said, 'Is that you, Walton ?

'Yes,' I answered.

What a perfect night, is it not?' he exclaimed. It makes our shipwreck seem no more than a dream. We might still be on board the poor "Lady Maud," and all the anguish we have suffered and escaped, a nightmare.'

6

We are lucky,' said I, 'to have fallen into such kind hands. But I am rather puzzled to know what I shall do when we reach Porto Rico. Is there a consul there?'

'Oh,' said he, 'I have arranged with Captain Broach to obtain the funds we shall require. Don't let that trouble you.' And Mrs. Stretton? Shall you send her to Kingston?' 'I will wait till I am ashore, to talk to her. I have a schemebut I am not yet resolved. She shall find me her friend. She is strangely mixed up in the cruellest experience that ever befell me,

and the sufferings she has passed through give her the strongest claims upon my sympathy. By the way,' he continued, 'I have a piece of news for you. It scarcely took me by surprise. Norie has proposed to Ada, and she has accepted him.'

'Indeed!'

'I say I am not surprised, because I knew all along that he admired her. But I did not know that she was in love with him.

Did you?'

'No.'

'At the beginning of our cruise, don't you remember that she used to snub him?'

I said nothing.

‘But,' he said, ‘I am sure he will make her happy. I shall be glad to see her settled. I had hoped to have her as a companion, now that I am alone,' said he, in a shaky voice; but a husband is better than an uncle for a girl, and I cannot question, from her manner of speaking to me just now, that she is really attached to the doctor.'

I kept my voice very well, and I am sure that he had no suspicion of the truth. Between that girl and me there had been little passages full of encouragement on her part. I held my peace while Sir Mordaunt talked on, coming presently to his wife, and speaking of her with tears in his voice, if not in his eyes. Then, taking my chance, I crossed over to where Miss Tuke and Norie were standing, looking at the waning moon-a blushing emblem of my own idle dream—and addressing the girl with as much cordiality as I could infuse into my manner, I said that Sir Mordaunt had told me of her engagement, and that I would not lose a minute in offering her and Norie my sincere congratulations.

'Thank you very much, Mr. Walton,' said she; and Norie added that he felt sure the news would give me pleasure.

And so ended a little business that everybody will smile at but I. But I relate it, because I doubt if the story of my shipwreck would be quite complete without it.

I put on a wooden face for the rest of the time, determined that Miss Tuke at all events should not suppose I considered myself jilted. But this matter hastened my departure from San Juan, where we arrived in due course. Sir Mordaunt begged me to stay until his wife's remains had been removed, and then accompany him and the others to Europe; but I told him I was anxious to get home, and an opportunity for leaving Porto Rico occurring three days after our arrival, I took leave of my companions, bidding poor Mrs. Stretton a tender farewell, in the full belief that I should never see her again.

Two months after my return to England, I received a long letter from Sir Mordaunt. He told me that he had brought his wife's remains with him, and that they were now interred in the family vault at Also (I should perhaps be surprised to hear), Mrs. Stretton