"Your brother considered right," said the
captain; "and you couldn't take care of a
better legacy. But again I interrupt."

"No; for I have nothing more to say. We
know that Hugh lived well for the good name,
and we feel certain that he died well for the
good name. And now it has come into my
keeping. And that's all."

"Well spoken!" cried the captain. "Well
spoken, young man! Concerning the manner
of your brother's death;" by this time, the captain
had released the hand he had shaken, and sat
with his own broad brown hands spread out on
his knees, and spoke aside; "concerning the
manner of your brother's death, it may be that
I have some information to give you; though it
may not be, for I am far from sure. Can we
have a little talk alone?"

The young man rose; but, not before the captain's
quick eye had noticed that, on the pretty
sweetheart's turning to the window to greet the
young widow with a nod and a wave of the hand,
the young widow had held up to her the needlework
on which she was engaged, with a patient
and pleasant smile. So the captain said, being
on his legs:

"What might she be making now?"

"What is Margaret making, Kitty?" asked
the young fisherman—with one of his arms
apparently mislaid somewhere.

As Kitty only blushed in reply, the captain
doubled himself up, as far as he could, standing,
and said, with a slap of his leg:

"In my country we should call it wedding-
clothes, fact! We should, I do assure you."

But, it seemed to strike the captain in another
light too; for, his laugh was not a long one, and
he added in quite a gentle tone:

"And it's very pretty, my dear, to see her—
poor young thing, with her fatherless child upon
her bosom giving up her thoughts to your home
and your happiness. It's very pretty, my dear,
and it's very good. May your marriage be more
prosperous than hers, and be a comfort to her,
too. May the blessed sun see you all happy
together, in possession of the good name, long
after I have done ploughing the great salt field
that is never sown!"

Kitty answered very earnestly. "O! Thank
you, sir, with all my heart!" And, in her loving
little way, kissed her hand to him, and possibly
by implication to the young fisherman too,
as the latter held the parlour door open for the
captain to pass out.

CHAPTER II. THE MONEY.

"THE stairs are very narrow, sir," said Alfred
Raybrock to Captain Jorgan.

"Like my cabin-stairs," returned the captain,
"on many a voyage."

"And they are rather inconvenient for the
head."

"If my head can't take care of itself by this
time, after all the knocking about the world it
has had," replied the captain, as unconcernedly
as if he had no connexion with it, "it's not
worth looking after."

Thus, they came into the young fisherman's
bedroom, which was as perfectly neat and clean
as the shop and parlour below: though it was but
a little place, with a sliding window, and a
phrenological ceiling expressive of all the peculiarities
of the house-roof. Here the captain sat down
on the foot of the bed, and, glancing at a dreadful
libel on Kitty which ornamented the wall—
the production of some wandering limner, whom
the captain secretly admired, as having studied
portraiture from the figure-heads of ships—
motioned to the young man to take the rush-chair
on the other side of the small round table. That
done, the captain put his hand into the deep
breast-pocket of his long-skirted blue coat, and
took out of it a strong square case-bottle—not
a large bottle, but such as may be seen in any
ordinary ship's medicine chest. Setting this bottle
on the table without removing his hand from it,
Captain Jorgan then spake as follows.

"In my last voyage homeward-bound," said
the captain, "and that's the voyage off of which
I now come straight, I encountered such weather
off the Horn, as is not very often met with,
even there. I have rounded that stormy Cape
pretty often, and I believe I first beat about
there in the identical storms that blew the devil's
horns and tail off, and led to the horns being
worked up into toothpicks for the plantation
overseers in my country, who may be seen (if you
travel down South, or away West, fur enough)
picking their teeth with 'em, while the whips,
made of the tail, flog hard. In this last voyage,
homeward-bound for Liverpool from South
America, I say to you my young friend, it
blew. Whole measures! No half measures, nor
making believe to blow; it blew! Now, I warn't
blown clean out of the water into the sky—
though I expected to be even that but I was
blown clean out of my course; and when at last
it fell calm, it fell dead calm, and a strong current
set one way, day and night, night and day,
and I drifted—drifted—drifted—out of all the
ordinary tracks and courses of ships, and drifted
yet, and yet drifted. It behoves a man who
takes charge of fellow-critturs' lives, never to
rest from making himself master of his calling.
I never did rest, and consequently I knew pretty
well (specially looking over the side in the dead
calm at that strong current), what dangers to
expect, and what precautions to take against
'em. In short, we were driving head on, to an
island. There was no Island in the chart, and,
therefore, you may say it was ill manners in the
Island to be there; I don't dispute its bad
breeding, but there it was. Thanks be to
Heaven, I was as ready for the Island as the
Island was ready for me. I made it out myself
from the masthead, and I got enough way upon
her in good time, to keep her off. I ordered a
boat to be lowered and manned, and went in that
boat myself to explore the Island. There was
a reef outside it, and, floating in a corner of the
smooth water within the reef, was a heap of
seaweed, and entangled in that seaweed was this
bottle."

Here, the captain took his hand from the