impressive--such as can only be seen at
sea, where each sound calls up some memory, and the sailor fancies he
can see the spirit of some departed friend in every flitting shadow.

Officers and men alike began to feel how great was their loss. They were
alone, as it were, on this broad and mysterious ocean, and they had
lost that odd old man who was their guiding spirit, and who never failed
them as friend and protector. All through that night the men watched and
strained their eyes in every direction, expecting to see the old sailor
rise on some crest; and more than one sailor that night cheered his
drooping feelings with the firm belief that some mysterious agency would
give them back the old captain before morning.

There was no one on that ship, however, who felt the loss more seriously
than Tite. It seemed to change all his prospects, to throw a shadow over
his future. He paced the deck, silent and thoughtful, until long after
midnight. To him the captain had been not only a friend, but a father.
Between them there had grown up the strongest of attachments. Tite had
looked forward to the time when this odd old man would have lifted him
into the confidence of his owners, and perhaps secured his future
prosperity.

All his hopes and joys seemed blasted now. Love, too, had been playing
its bewitching part; amidst all these drawbacks and disappointments,
love had been prompting his ambition with her dreams of a happy future.
Mattie's image, so bright, so beautiful, had been with him everywhere,
prompting his thoughts and actions as only the woman you love can, and
making him more ambitious to secure that golden future his fancy had
pictured. Never before had his courage failed him. No matter what the
danger, he had felt that she was at his side, encouraging him. Now the
gloomy thought of returning home penniless, with, indeed, nothing but
his adventures and misfortunes to offer her and his aged parents, began
to prey upon his mind, to make him sad and despondent. Then the advice
so often given him by the old captain, never to get discouraged, not
even under the most adverse circumstances, and that the brightest day
was sure to follow the darkest night, would cheer him up.

When the whale had been taken aboard, the ship, under her new commander,
Mr. Higgins, stood away into the North Pacific, where she cruised along
the land, in the direction of Behring's Straits, for several weeks. The
prospect not seeming to bright