an hour.
Our last act is to put this in a bottle and drop it overboard.
Farewell, for this world, my beloved wife and son.'

"`DANIEL BOYNS, Captain.'"

This letter was forwarded to the owner, and by him was sent to poor Mrs
Boyns.

Alas! how many sailors' wives, in our sea-girt isle, have received
similar "messages from the sea," and lived under the dark cloud of
never-ending suspense--hoping against hope that the dear lost ones might
yet return!

CHAPTER THREE.

SHOWS WHAT SOME MEN WILL DO AND DARE FOR MONEY, AND WHAT SOMETIMES COMES
OF IT.

We must now beg the reader's permission to allow a few more years to
elapse. Eight have come and gone since the dark day when poor Mrs
Boyns received that message from the sea, which cast a permanent cloud
over her life. Annie Webster has become a beautiful woman, and Harry
Boyns a bronzed stalwart man.

But things have changed with time. These two seldom meet now, in
consequence of the frequent absence of the latter on long voyages, and
when they do meet, there is not the free, frank intercourse that there
used to be. In fact, Mr Webster had long ago begun to suspect that his
daughter's regard for the handsome young sailor was of a nature that
bade fair to interfere with his purposed mercantile transactions in
reference to her, so he wisely sent him off on voyages of considerable
length, hoping that he might chance to meet with the same fate as his
father, and wound up by placing him in command of one of his largest and
most unseaworthy East Indiamen, in the full expectation that both
captain and vessel would go to the bottom together, and thus enable him,
at one stroke, to make a good round sum out of the insurance offices,
and get rid of a troublesome servant!

Gloating over these and kindred subjects, Mr Webster sat one morning in
his office mending a pen, and smiling in a sardonic fashion to the
portrait of his deceased wife's father, when a tap came to the door, and
Harry Boyns entered.

"I have come, sir," he said, "to tell you that the repairs done to the
_Swordfish_ are not by any means sufficient. There are at least--"

"Please do not waste time, Captain Boyns, by entering upon details,"
said Mr Webster, interrupting him with a bland smile: "I am really
quite ignorant of the technicalities of shipbuilding. If you will state
the matter to Mr Cooper, whom I employ expressly for--"

"But, sir," interrupted Harry, with some warmth, "I _have_ sp