traces of animation had fled, that he ventured again to speak.

"Then I may look upon my ventur' as worse than nothing?" he said. "The
insurers will raise a question about paying for a craft that has been
rebuilt in this way, and the Vineyard folks will be sartain to put in a
claim of salvage, both on account of two of their hands helping you with
the work, and on account of the materials--and we with no cargo, as an
offset to it all!"

"No, deacon, it is not quite as bad as that," resumed Roswell. "We have
brought home a good lot of skins; enough to pay the people full wages and
to return you every cent of outfit, with a handsome advance on the
venture. A sealer usually makes a good business of it, if she falls in
with seals. Our cargo, in skins, can't be worth less than $20,000; besides
half a freight left on the island, for which another craft may be sent."

"That is suthin', the Lord be praised!" ejaculated the deacon. "Though the
schooner is as bad as gone, and the outlays have been awfully heavy, I'm
almost afraid to go any further. Gardner,--did you--I grow weak very
fast--did you stop--Mary, I wish _you_ would put the question."

"I am afraid that my uncle means to ask if you stopped at the Key, in the
West Indies, according to your instructions, Roswell?" the niece said, and
most reluctantly, for she plainly saw it was fully time her uncle ceased
to think of the things of this life, and to begin to turn all his thoughts
on the blessed mediation, and another state of being.

"I forgot no part of your orders, sir," rejoined Roswell. "It was my duty
to obey them, and I believe I have done so to the letter--"

"Stop, Gar'ner," interrupted the dying man--"one question, while I think
of it. Will the Vineyard men have any claim of salvage on account of them
skins?"

"Certainly not, sir. These skins are all our own--were taken, cured,
stowed, and brought home altogether by ourselves. There is a lot of skins
belonging to the Vineyarders, stowed away in the house, which is yours,
deacon, and which it would well pay any small craft to go and bring away.
If anybody is to claim salvage, it will be ourselves. No salvage was
demanded for the loss off Cape Henlopen, I trust?"

"No, none--Daggett behaved what I call _liberal_ in that affair,"--half
the critics of the day would use the adjective instead of the adverb here,
and why should Deacon Prates English be any better than his
neighbours?--"and so I've admitted to hi