. Volunteers from the frigate eagerly
crowded on board the "Osterley," armed to the teeth. Morton had gained
sufficient information from the old man to enable him to form a plan for
rescuing the prisoners, should they be, as he trusted, still on the
island. He had had frequent conversations with the elder Doull. One
day the old man again referred to the abduction transaction in which he
had been engaged in his youth. The similarity of the account to that
Morton had heard of his father's history, struck him.

"Where was it? from what part of the coast did you take the child?" he
asked, eagerly.

"Did I not say from Shetland?" replied the old man. "And what is
strange, Lieutenant Morton, the boy's name was the same as yours; but
maybe you know nothing of Shetland; it's a fine land anyhow, and you are
too young to be the child I was speaking of."

"You are mistaken in one point, Mr Doull," said Morton. "I belong to
Shetland; I was born and bred there; and I feel almost sure that the boy
you carried off was my father. He was picked up at sea by a Captain
Scarsdale, who brought him up as his son."

"Scarsdale!--now you speak it, that's the name of the master of the
vessel who took us off the raft, and from whose ship we ran. For many a
long year I have not thought of it. Yes, Andrew Scarsdale; and the boy
was called Rolf Morton--the names come back to me as if I heard them but
yesterday. There are not many other names I can remember which I knew
at that time."

"But do you believe that that was the real name of the child?" asked
Morton, for he had heard his father express his belief that the name he
bore was not his true one.

"That I do not know," answered old Doull. "If it was not, the only one
of us who knew the truth was our leader--the man who led us to commit
the crime--that villain, Rolf Yell. It's many a year since I have
spoken his name. Now I remember, he gave me a paper to Captain
Scarsdale, and put his name to it, and we saw him do it; and we--that
is, Archy Eagleshay and I did; and the captain put his name, and we put
ours after that, though we didn't read the paper, but the captain said
that it was all right, and that it was what he wanted, and he took it
below; and so I supposed that it would make everything square for the
poor boy."

This circumstantial account agreed so exactly with that which Captain
Scarsdale had given his father, that Ronald had no doubt that he had
found a clue whi