ned to him, very, very sick indeed.

"Sinking fast, I'm afraid," the doctor said. "The fever has broken, but
the shock of yesterday's danger and rescue has been too much for a man in
his weakened state. Still there's a chance for him--a fighting chance. But
it will take very careful and experienced nursing to pull him through."

So Father Tom had gone in search of a nurse, leaving Freddy and Brother
Bart watching by the sick bed; while Dan, who as second mate was assisting
his chief officers to right and repair the "Sary Ann," listened with a
heavy heart to the old salt's prognostications.

"He won't last the day out," declared Captain Jeb. "Blue about the gills
already! But, Lord, what could you expect, doused and drenched and shaken
up like he was yesterday? It will be hard on the little chap, who was so
glad to get his father back. It's sort of a pity, 'cording to my notion,
that, being adrift so long, he didn't go down in deep-sea soundings, and
not come ashore to break up like this."

"O Captain Jeb, no, no!" Dan looked up from his hammering on the "Sary
Ann" in quick protest against such false doctrine. "A man isn't like a
ship: he has a soul. And that's the main thing, after all. If you save
your soul, it doesn't make much difference about your body. And drifting
ashore right here has saved the soul of Mr. Wirt (or Mr. Neville, as we
must call him now); for he was lying over on Last Island, feeling that
there was no hope for him in heaven or on earth. And then Freddy came to
him, and Father Tom, and he turned to God for pardon and mercy; and now
his dying is all right,--though I haven't given him up yet," concluded
Dan, more cheerfully. "Poor little Freddy has been praying so hard all
night, I feel he is going to be heard somehow. And I've seen Mick
Mulligan, that had typhoid last summer, looking a great deal worse than
Mr. Neville, and before Thanksgiving there wasn't a boy on the hill he
couldn't throw. Here comes Father Tom back with--with--" Dan dropped his
hammer entirely, and stood up to stare in amazement at the little motor
boat making its way to the broken wharf. "Jing! Jerusalem! if--if it isn't
that pretty lady from Beach Cliff that Polly calls Marraine!"

XXIV.--A STAR IN THE DARKNESS.

Marraine,--Polly's Marraine,--Aunt Winnie's old friend,--the lovely,
silver-robed lady of the party who had stood by Dan in his trouble!--it
was she, indeed, all dressed in white, with a pretty little cap o