rising
every moment on the horizon."

"Where?" repeated Fritz, now alongside of the other. "I can't see her."

"There," said Eric, pointing to a tiny white speck in the distance,
which to Fritz's eyes seemed more like the wing of a sea bird than
anything else.

"How can you make her out to be the _Pilot's Bride_?" was his next
query. "I can barely discern a faint spec far away; and that might be
anything!"

Eric smiled.

"Himmel!" he cried with an infinite superiority. "What bad sight you
landsmen have, to be sure! Can't you see that she is a barque and is
steering straight for the bay. What other vessel, I should like to
know, would be coming here of that description, save the old skipper's
ship!"

Fritz made no reply to this unanswerable logic; so, he asked another
question instead.

"What time do you think she'll be near enough to send a boat off, eh,
brother? We can't go out to meet her, now, you know."

"No, worse luck!" said Eric. "However, I think, with this breeze,
she'll be close to us in a couple of hours' time."

"A couple of hours!" exclaimed Fritz with dismay, the interval, in his
present excited state of feeling, appearing like an eternity!

"Yes; but, the time will soon pass in watching her," replied the sailor
lad. "Look how she rises! There, can't you now see her hull above the
waves?"

Fritz gazed till his eyes were almost blinded, the sun being right in
his face when he looked in the direction of the advancing vessel; but,
to his inexperienced eyes, she still seemed as far off as ever.

"I dare say you are right, Eric," he said; "still, I cannot see her hull
yet--nor anything indeed but the same little tiny speck I noticed at
first! However," he added, drawing a deep sigh, "if we only wait
patiently, I suppose she'll arrive in time."

"Everything comes to him who knows how to wait," replied his brother,
rather grandiloquently; after which speech the two continued to look out
over the shimmering expanse of water, now lit up by the rays of the
steadily rising sun, without interchanging another word. Their thoughts
were too full for speech.

Some two hours later, the _Pilot's Bride_--for it was that vessel,
Eric's instinct not having misled him--backed her main-topsail and lay-
to off the entrance to the little bay, the gaudy American flag being run
up as she came to the wind, and a gun fired.

The brother crusoes were almost mad in their eagerness to get on board.

"Wha