striving to do so, he slipped
and crushed his little lantern, leaving himself in total darkness.

CHAPTER XIX.

Captain Dilke's Fate--A Happy Wind-Up.

The days had dragged by on leaden wings to the parents of Jason Dilke.
The mother was nearly bereft of reason, but the father, spite of grief
for his son and anxiety for his wife, gained in strength day by day.

Every effort to find the boy in the vicinity of Old Orchard and to the
southward had been made. Liberal rewards were offered and advertisements
inserted in papers far and near.

Jacob, the faithful old servitor, had been continually on the go, but
all without success.

And yet the strength of Allan Dilke did not succumb. His face was white
and thin, but his eyes shone with a determined light.

"We will hear from Arnold to-morrow," he would say, hopefully, at night.
"I know he is doing his utmost."

But the morrow came, and still no word from the absent ones. The heart
of the mother had lost all hope, when one night there came a summons at
the door after the bereaved parents had retired.

"It is Jason," said Allan Dilke, rising hastily and dressing, when the
servant had tapped upon the door and announced that visitors desired to
see him.

"Show them into the drawing-room," he said, as he came forth in
dressing-gown and slippers.

"But they are rough, sea-faring men, sir," replied the domestic. "Shall
I--"

"Do as I bid you!" interrupted the master of the house, sternly. "No
room is too good for those who bring tidings of my son."

A moment later two men stood before him in rough sailor garb.

"We come to inform you that--" began one of them, who was no other than
Shaky, when Allan Dilke interrupted him.

"If my son is with you," he said, firmly, "bring him to me. If he is
dead, tell me so!"

Shaky at once left the room, and soon a little procession came slowly
in. Two men were carrying a helpless body, while a woman and boy
followed.

A wail of anguish sounded. A woman with white face and streaming hair
knelt beside the slight figure which lay upon a sofa.

"Dead! Is my boy dead?" she sobbed. "Twice we have been robbed. Once, so
many years ago, when our first-born was taken by the cruel sea, and
now--"

She had spoken so hurriedly and with such an abandon of despair that
Allan Dilke had failed in trying to calm her.

"The boy is not dead," said Shaky. "See, he is opening his eyes. He is
only exhausted."

The m