would certainly be
killed by the savages, whose practise it is to slay and eat all
unfortunates who chance to be wrecked and cast upon their shores. But no
islands were in sight; and it was possible that he might be left to
float on the boundless ocean until the slow and terrible process of
starvation did its work, and wore away the life which he felt to be so
fresh and strong within him.

When he thought of this he shuddered, and reverted, almost with a
feeling of pleasure, to the idea that another storm might spring up ere
long, and, by dashing his frail raft to pieces, bring his life to a
speedy termination. His hopes were not very clear even to his own mind.
He did indeed hope, because he could not help it; but what it was that
he hoped for would have puzzled him to state. A passing ship finding him
in a part of the Pacific where ships were not wont to pass was perhaps
among the least animating of all his hopes.

But the thoughts that coursed through the youth's brain that night were
not centered alone upon the means or the prospects of deliverance. He
thought of his mother,--her gentleness, her goodness, her unaccountable
partiality for Gascoyne; but, more than all, he thought of her love for
himself. He thought, too, of his former life,--his joys, his sorrows,
and his sins. As he remembered these last, his soul was startled, and he
thought of his God and his Saviour as he had never thought before.
Despite his efforts to restrain them, tears, but not unmanly tears,
_would_ flow down his cheeks as he sat that evening on his raft;
meditated on the past, the present, and the future, and realized the
terrible solemnity of his position,--without water or food--almost
without hope--alone on the deep.

CHAPTER XXIV.

AN UNEXPECTED MEETING--DOINGS ON THE ISLE OF PALMS--GASCOYNE'S DESPAIR.

It was not without some difficulty that the boat reached the shore after
the squall burst upon them. On landing, the party observed, dark though
it was, that their leader's countenance wore an expression of the
deepest anxiety; yet there were lines upon it that indicated the raging
of conflicting passions which he found it difficult to restrain.

"I fear me," said Ole Thorwald, in a troubled voice, "that our young
friend Henry Stuart is in danger."

"Lost!" said Gascoyne, in a voice so low and grating that it startled
his hearers.

"Say not so," said Mr. Mason, earnestly. "He is a brave and a clever
youth, and knows how