and rolled and tossed with the vessel like a
lifeless thing. Blair feared the poor boy had actually died of terror;
but he soon convinced himself that there was yet motion in that heart
which had throbbed so truly for him.

There was no sleep for Blair during that long wild night. In the
intensity of his excitement, his thoughts flew through his mind with a
vividness and a swiftness that made him almost feel that he was tasting
a new and higher kind of existence. Spiritual things were as real to him
as his own identity, and the God in whom he trusted seemed at his side
as a familiar friend. Of his mother too he could think without a tear.
He was sure that if left childless, she would be comforted and sustained
and gently led along her lonely pathway. Had he not been fulfilling her
oft-repeated counsel, to fear nothing but sin? Had he not vindicated
that love of his native land, which she had taught him should be next to
his allegiance to God? She might never know his fate. Yet she would
mourn for him as for one who died in his effort to fulfil the duties of
his absent father, and risked his own life to save the human freight of
a ship from wreck and sure destruction.

Daylight brought but a feeble glimmer to Blair's dark prison-house, yet
he welcomed it as the assurance of dawn--dawn which is ever welcome to
the watcher, though it may usher in a day of double danger.

CHAPTER IX.

A REWARD.

Hal was still in the deep sleep into which he had fallen, when the bolts
of their place of confinement were withdrawn. Blair's clear bright eyes
looked full in the face of the English commander, who now stood before
him.

"Give me your hand, my boy," said the captain. "I can respect bravery
wherever I find it. I honor you for your determined courage. Tell me,
who taught you so to love your country?"

Blair's hand still hung at his side as he answered, "My mother, sir; the
best of mothers. She would rather have me die in the right cause, than
live a traitor."

"You will not give me your hand? Perhaps I do not deserve it; but it
was not cruelty which prompted me to act as I did last evening. I felt
our danger, and scrupled not to use any means which should bring you to
terms. Your constancy triumphed. I knew that no threats could force such
a spirit. You shall not lose your reward, in the knowledge of the
service you have done your home and your kindred. My orders were to get
into the harbor of Fairport, to take pos