aid between the two captains, and once more the Bremen
captain shook hands with us all round. The emigrants cheered as the
ship bore up round us, and away she went to the west, while we lay as
near the wind as our dismasted state would allow us.

I was anxious to settle the question as to the identity of the captain,
so I asked one of the men what his name was. He somewhat startled me by
answering "Tooke." He, however, could tell me nothing about his past
history; so I went up to the captain himself, and asked him if he had
not been on board the _Fate_ when she was wrecked?

"Yes," he replied; "I was the sole survivor of all on board that
unfortunate craft."

"No, sir, you were not," I answered, and I told him how a number of us
had got away in the boat, and how all, with the exception of old Cole,
Iffley, and I, had been lost, and how the old mate had died, and we were
the only ones left. He told me that when the mast went overboard, he
had clung to it, and that the tide had carried it out into mid-channel.
When morning broke, he found himself close to a vessel hove-to. The
wind then began to fall, and the sea to go down, and in a short time
they sent a boat and picked him up. He by that time was very much
exhausted, and could scarcely have held out another quarter of an hour.

He himself had been all his life utterly careless about religion; but
while he was hanging on to the mast amid the raging ocean, he had been
led to think of the future, towards which he felt that he was probably
hastening, and he could not help discerning the finger of God in thus
bringing him directly up to the only vessel within many miles of him.
When he got on board, however, he was struck by the utter want of
respect shown by the master and all the crew for anything like religion.
He and they were scoffers and blasphemers and professed infidels. He
said that he was so horrified and shocked at all he heard, that he
trembled lest he might have become like them.

From that time forward he prayed that he might be enlightened and
reformed, and he felt truly a new heart put into him. He had never
since gone back. He had met with many misfortunes and hardships. He
had been frequently shipwrecked; had lost all his property; had been
taken prisoner by the enemy; had been compelled to serve as mate instead
of master; and had scarcely ever been able to visit his family on shore.
Still he went on, trusting in God's mercy, and feeling sure