her
to some of those smaller churches in the provinces, those little refuges
where a handful of believers gathered together, and it was there that
her thoughts had placed the crowning act of a woman's life. But when
had she thought of such a marriage as this, with the white deck swaying
beneath them, the ropes humming above, their only choristers the gulls
which screamed around them, and their wedding hymn the world-old anthem
which is struck from the waves by the wind? And when could she forget
the scene? The yellow masts and the bellying sails, the gray drawn face
and the cracked lips of the castaway, her father's gaunt earnest
features as he knelt to support the dying minister, De Catinat in his
blue coat, already faded and weather-stained. Captain Savage with his
wooden face turned towards the clouds, and Amos Green with his hands in
his pockets and a quiet twinkle in his blue eyes! Then behind all the
lanky mate and the little group of New England seamen with their
palmetto hats and their serious faces!

And so it was done amid kindly words in a harsh foreign tongue, and the
shaking of rude hands hardened by the rope and the oar. De Catinat and
his wife leaned together by the shrouds when all was over and watched
the black side as it rose and fell, and the green water which raced past
them.

"It is all so strange and so new," she said. "Our future seems as vague
and dark as yonder cloud-banks which gather in front of us."

"If it rest with me," he answered, "your future will be as merry and
bright as the sunlight that glints on the crest of these waves.
The country that drove us forth lies far behind us, but out there is
another and a fairer country, and every breath of wind wafts us nearer
to it. Freedom awaits us there, and we bear with us youth and love, and
what could man or woman ask for more?"

So they stood and talked while the shadows deepened into twilight and
the first faint gleam of the stars broke out in the darkening heavens
above them. But ere those stars had waned again one more toiler had
found rest aboard the _Golden Rod_, and the scattered flock from Isigny
had found their little pastor once more.

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE LAST PORT.

For three weeks the wind kept at east or north-east, always at a brisk
breeze and freshening sometimes into half a gale. The _Golden Rod_ sped
merrily upon her way with every sail drawing, alow and aloft, so that by
the end of the third week Amos a