home the information he had received,
and placed the cause of the boy in proper hands; but the men having
disappeared, he was afraid to trust the document to a stranger, with the
numberless chances of a long sea voyage, against its ever reaching its
destination. Unexpected events, however, kept him out in the South Seas
far longer than he had anticipated. He did not object to this, for he
had the boy as his companion, and he devoted himself to his education.
Young Rolf did not show any great talent, but he gave every promise of
becoming a fine, manly, true-hearted sailor, and with that his kind
patron was amply satisfied.

At length, just as the ship had nearly completed her cargo of sperm oil,
and was about to return home, she was overtaken by a hurricane, and
driven on shore and lost; the crew were saved, and so was the captain's
chest. Most of Captain Scarsdale's hard-earned gains were swallowed up;
and the command of another whaler, whose master had died, being offered
him, he gladly accepted it, in the hopes that, by remaining out a few
years longer, he should be able to retrieve his fortunes; and what was
still nearer his heart, of obtaining the means for, as he told his
acquaintance, of establishing young Morton's rights. What he considered
those rights to be he wisely told no one.

"No, no," he replied, when asked; "no one but a fool sounds a trumpet
before him to give notice of his approach, that the enemy may be
prepared to receive him."

Rolf Morton had by this time become all that his friend anticipated; but
though well-informed for his age, his knowledge of the world and its
ways, it must be owned, was not extensive.

The ship was bound to Liverpool, but being dismasted in a terrific gale,
she was driven past the entrance to the Channel, and up the west coast
of Ireland. Land was made at last on the starboard bow, and hopes were
entertained that she might be brought round so as to enter the Irish
Channel by the northern passage. Captain Scarsdale himself lay in his
hammock, disabled by a falling spar.

Scarcely an hour had passed after the land was seen before the ship
struck. It was ascertained that it was on the extreme point of a reef,
and the first mate hoped that by lightening the ship she might beat over
it. The captain acquiesced, and every article that could be got at was,
as soon as possible, committed to the sea.

"Yes, heave away--heave away everything you can lay your hands on,
l