abin--except Dr. Darcantel, in
case he should come on board."

The stiff soldier laid his white-gloved finger on the visor of his hat.
Then the chaplain, standing on his flag-draped pulpit at the main-mast,
with those five hundred quiet, attentive sailors seated on capstan-bars
and match-tubs between the silent cannon, and no sound save his mild,
persuasive voice, as he read the sublime service from the good lessons
before him. Then, after a short but impressive sermon, adapted to the
comprehension of the honest tars around him, with a kindly word, too,
for the sagacious officers who commanded them, he closed the holy book
and delivered the parting benediction.

As he began, a shore boat, in spite of the warning of the sentry at the
gangway, came bows on to the frigate's solid side, and as she went
dancing and bobbing back from the recoil of the concussion, a tall,
powerful man leaped out of her, and, by a mighty spring, caught the
man-ropes of the port gangway, and swung himself through the open port
of the gun-deck. Bowing his lofty head with reverential awe as the last
solemn words of the benediction were uttered by the chaplain, he joined,
in a deep, guttural voice, the word "Amen," and strode on and entered
the cabin.

The curtains were closely drawn of the after cabin, even to shut out the
first whisper of the young sea-breeze which was fluttering in from Port
Royal; and there stood that noble officer, with his strong arm thrown
around the gallant youth--the picture of abject woe--talking in his
kind, feeling accents, trying to console him, painting the sky bright in
the distance, and begging him, by all the love and affection he bore him
through so many years, to be a man, and trust to his good conscience and
his right arm to cleave his way through the clouds and gloom which
surrounded him.

"There, Henry, you are calmer now. Sit down here in my stateroom, and
while you think of that fond girl, give a thought to that poor bereaved
mother, Madame Rosalie, who loves you for the resemblance she thinks you
bear to her little boy, who was murdered by pirates just seventeen years
ago off this very island."

"What do you say, Cleveland?" said a voice behind him, with such deep,
concentrated energy that the commodore fairly started. "What did you say
about a lost child and a Madame Rosalie?"

Paul Darcantel stood there in the softened crimson light, with his
sinewy, bony hands upraised, his gaunt breast heaving, w