shouted the captain.

"Ship aho-o-oy!" came faintly back on the breeze, while every voice was
hushed and ear strained to listen, "All right! all saved!"

A loud "Thank the Lord!" burst from our coxswain's heaving chest, and a
wild ringing cheer leaped upwards alike from passengers and crew, while
warm tears overflowed from many an eye that was more intimate with cold
spray, for a noble deed and a life saved have always the effect of
stirring the deepest enthusiasm of mankind.

A few minutes more and three dripping figures came up the gangway.
First came Nellie herself; dishevelled and pale, but strong and hearty
nevertheless, as might be expected of a fisher-girl and a lifeboat
coxswain's wife! She naturally fell into, or was caught up by, her
husband's arms, and was carried off to the cabin.

Following her came two somewhat exhausted men.

The cheer that greeted them was not unmingled with surprise.

"The best an' the worst men i' the ship!" gasped Joe Slag, amid laughter
and hearty congratulations.

He was probably right, for it was the young Wesleyan minister and Ned
Jarring who had effected this gallant rescue.

The performance of a good action has undoubtedly a tendency to elevate,
as the perpetration of a bad one has to demoralise.

From that day forward Black Ned felt that he had acquired a certain
character which might be retained or lost. Without absolutely saying
that he became a better man in consequence, we do assert that he became
more respectable to look at, and drank less!

Thus the voyage progressed until the good ship _Lapwing_ sailed in among
some of the innumerable islands of the Southern seas.

STORY ONE, CHAPTER 6.

Darkness, whether physical, mental, or spiritual, is probably the
greatest evil that man has had to contend with since the fall. At all
events, the physical and mental forms of it were the cause of the good
ship _Lapwing_ sailing one night straight to destruction.

It happened thus. A pretty stiff breeze, amounting almost to half a
gale, was blowing on the night in question, and the emigrant ship was
running before it under close-reefed topsails. For some days previously
the weather had been "dirty," and the captain had found it impossible to
obtain an observation, so that he was in the dark as to the exact part
of the ocean, in which he was sailing.

In an open sea this is not of serious moment, but when one is nearing
land, or in the neighbourhood of islands,