_ found full
employment in erecting huts of boughs and broad leaves, and in
collecting cocoa-nuts and a few other wild fruits and roots.

Meanwhile the bottle thrown overboard by Watty Wilkins, with its
"message from the sea," began a long and slow but steady voyage.

It may not, perhaps, be known to the reader that there are two mighty
currents in the ocean, which never cease to flow. The heated waters of
the Equator flow north and south to get cooled at the Poles, and then
flow back again from the Poles to get reheated at the Equator.

The form of continents, the effect of winds, the motion of the earth,
and other influences, modify the flow of this great oceanic current and
produce a variety of streams. One of these streams, a warm one, passing
up the coast of Africa, is driven into the Gulf of Mexico, from which it
crosses the Atlantic to the west coast of Britain, and is familiarly
known as the Gulf Stream. If Watty Wilkins's bottle had been caught by
this stream, it would, perhaps, in the course of many months, have been
landed on the west of Ireland. If it had been caught by any of the
other streams, it might have ended its career on the coasts of Japan,
Australia, or any of the many "ends of the earth." But the bottle came
under a more active influence than that of the ocean streams. It was
picked up, one calm day, by a British ship, and carried straight to
England, where its contents were immediately put into the newspapers,
and circulated throughout the land.

The effect of little Wilkins's message from the sea on different minds
was various. By some it was read with interest and pathos, while others
glanced it over with total indifference. But there were a few on whom
the message fell like a thunderbolt, as we shall now proceed to show.

CHAPTER FIVE.

TELLS OF PLOTTINGS AND TRIALS AT HOME, WITH DOINGS AND DANGERS ABROAD.

In a dingy office, in a back street in one of the darkest quarters of
the city, whose name we refrain from mentioning, an elderly man sat down
one foggy morning, poked the fire, blew his nose, opened his newspaper,
and began to read. This man was a part-owner of the _Lively Poll_. His
name was Black. Black is a good wearing colour, and not a bad name, but
it is not so suitable a term when applied to a man's character and
surroundings. We cannot indeed, say positively that Mr Black's
character was as black as his name, but we are safe in asserting that it
was very dirt