loyal to them both by asking nothing, by seeking
to know nothing, until I am told." And
here a sudden thrill of joy, joy so pure and vivid
that it should have made her understand her
own feelings without further investigation, shot
through the girl's heart, as she thought:

"If she knows him, my chance of seeing him
again is much greater. In time I must come
to understand it all."

So Clare allowed the paper to fall from her
hands upon the carpet whence she had taken it,
and when Mrs. Carruthers re-entered the room
bringing a packet of letters which she had gone
to seek, Clare had resumed her place at the
piano.

TWO CRUSOES.

AFTER a lengthened sojourn in the far East,
I found myself safely anchored one fine afternoon
at Gibraltar, on board of a certain good steamer,
commanded by a certain good captain. The
ship had stopped at the Rock to take in a fresh
lot of coals for England, and I had been engaged
for some time on deck enjoying a black clay pipe,
with a very venerable bowl, when the captain sent
up the steward with a polite request that I
would be kind enough to "step below for a few
minutes." I went below, and in the cabin
found our worthy commander seated at table, in
company with the master of the brig from which
we were then taking in our coal, and by the
skipper of the very venerable-looking sheer hulk
from which the steamers of the company to which
our own belonged were wont to take in their
supplies. The captain had begged of me to come
down in order that I might have the opportunity
of taking some rough notes of a "yarn"
which the jolly-looking skipper of the sheer hulk
was "spinning." I sat down at once and did so.
The ancient mariner, the narrator, MR. JAMES
PAINE, wore a dingy straw hat, had a full, ruddy,
healthy face, and ample rotundity of frame.

In the early part of the year 1828, James Paine
shipped as an able seaman on board of the
schooner Hunter, then bound on a sealing
voyage to the regions of the South Atlantic.
In due time and without any particular adventure,
they reached the island of Amsterdam.
The first thing they did was, to land a quantity
of salt which was intended to cure the seal-skins,
as they obtained them. This salt, it being then
fine weather, they landed near the shore.

Night coming on, they all went on board the
brig and turned in, intending to complete their
arrangements on the morrow. During the night,
however, a gale sprang up from the west, and
as the salt was in danger of being absorbed by
the water, Paine, and another seaman named
Proudfoot, volunteered to land, and remove it
further up from the shore. Whilst engaged in
this work, which took a considerable time, they
being occasionally half blinded with lightning
and much bewildered, the boat in which they had
landed from the vessel was carried away, quite
unobserved by them.

The two men strained their eyes seawards
where they supposed the schooner to be, but it
had now grown utterly dark, and they could
not see their own hands before them. At length
a flash of lightning, more vivid and prolonged
than usual, showed, to their inexpressible dismay,
that the schooner had drifted with the easterly
current from her moorings out of sight to sea,
and that their own small boat danced solitary and
tenantless upon the crest of a far-distant wave,
and was likewise being rapidly borne away.

The calamity was so sudden, that they could
not at the time adequately understand it. So,
for the moment only concerning themselves
about the loss of the boat, which would be
surely attributed to their carelessness, they
made the best they could of the night, and
patiently awaited the dawn, under the impression
that the schooner would reappear on the cessation
of the gale. The day did at last dawn, but
not with hope for them. Neither schooner nor
boat ever appeared to their eyes again, from that
fatal night to the present day.

The island of Amsterdam is, as most mariners
and many landsmen know, anything but a
garden of Eden. It is destitute of trees, scant of
vegetation and esculent roots, and no prospect of
any food save fish, which the two men possessed
as yet no means of catching. Wild gulls,
swarming in myriads around and on the island,
screamed in anger and perhaps in mockery over
their heads. The first thing to be done was
to explore the island, and to keep a sharp lookout
for the schooner or for any other vessel. The
latter was a fruitless task, however, for at that
early date (and the fact holds good even up to
the present time) very few vessels touched at
such a spot, and those few were themselves
"sealers," like the schooner Hunter. During
their exploration of the island, they discovered
a vast number of sea-birds' eggs in the fissures
of the rocks, some of which they abstracted for
their first breakfast.

The next things to be done in rotation were,
first, to procure fire to cook their eggs; secondly,
to secure an eligible spot upon which to erect
some sort of signal-staff; thirdly, to make some
species of shelter from the rain and storms
which frequently assail that barren spot. As
for the means of quenching their thirst, the
rain which lodged in the fissures of the rocks
formed their only supply. Of this they discovered
a little, and they both decided that no time must
be lost in contriving some means to preserve
water in greater quantity before the next rain
should fall.

The fire they obtained in the usual manner
observed by castaways, of rubbing two sticks
her with due patience. Being well supplied
with brushwood and coarse grass, they speedily
built a rude hut. The fire, like that sacred and
venerated element in the temples of the
Zoroastrians, they agreed must never be allowed