ning. "I can't let
you go. What! going? Oh my lad!" and Derry Duck's hard, blood-marked
face was suddenly wet with tears.

CHAPTER XVIII.

WAGES.

The East Indiaman was too important a prize to be trusted to any other
than the skilful sailor and brave officer, Derry Duck. He was at once
ordered to prepare to take her into an American port, with all due
formalities.

Derry's sea-chest contained more than his scanty wardrobe, his golden
gains during this long cruise were garnered there. Yet he trusted it to
the hands of unscrupulous men, while his own arms found a more welcome
burden. Tenderly as a mother bears her sleeping infant, Derry clasped a
slender figure to his rough bosom, and would suffer no one to give him
aid in his office of love. There was a gentle pulsation in the heart so
near to his. There was a growing warmth in the form which was so
precious to the mate of the Molly.

Blair was still alive, and Derry would allow no duty to interfere with
the sacred privilege of caring for the wounded youth, and bearing him
home, living or dead, to his mother.

On a couch of Indian luxury Derry laid the prostrate figure of Blair
Robertson, and as he turned to leave the cabin, the face of the once
hardened tar was softened into womanly gentleness as he said, "God help
him, and bring him to, sound and well."

The excessive faintness and exhaustion of the wound had indeed seemed to
Blair like the lingering, reluctant parting of soul and body; and he
might well have adopted the words of that hymn, honored by the murmured
breathings of many a dying saint:

"What is this absorbs me quite,
Steals my senses, shuts my sight,
Drowns my spirit, draws my breath?
Tell me, my soul, can this be death?
The world recedes, it disappears:
Heaven opens on my eyes, my ears
With sounds seraphic ring:
Lend, lend your wings: I mount, I fly;
O grave, where is thy victory!
O death, where is thy sting!"

The curtain which separates this lower world from the glories of the
unseen bliss above, had grown thin and almost transparent to the eyes of
the Christian boy, thus brought to the gates of death. Near, very near
to him seemed the face of the Saviour who had of late been his realized
and beloved companion. It was as the mother bows down to her suffering
child, that this glimpse of the dear Redeemer was made so plain to the
weakened, prostrate boy. He was still in the flesh, and to know weary
waiting