rs; and so we'll manage famously, and soon reach the
Coral Island."

Bill smiled faintly as I ran on in this strain.

"And what will you do," said he, "if it comes on to blow a storm?"

This question silenced me, while I considered what I should do in such a
case. At length I laid my hand on his arm and said, "Bill, when a man
has done all that he can do, he ought to leave the rest to God."

"Oh Ralph," said my companion in a faint voice, looking anxiously into
my face, "I wish that I had the feelin's about God that you seem to
have, at this hour. I'm dyin', Ralph; yet I, who have braved death a
hundred times, am afraid to die. I'm afraid to enter the next world.
Something within tells me there will be a reckoning when I go there.
But it's all over with me, Ralph. I feel that there's no chance o' my
bein' saved."

"Don't say that, Bill," said I in deep compassion; "don't say that. I'm
quite sure there's hope even for you, but I can't remember the words of
the Bible that make me think so. Is there not a Bible on board, Bill?"

"No; the last that was in the ship belonged to a poor boy that was taken
aboard against his will. He died, poor lad--I think through
ill-treatment and fear. After he was gone, the captain found his Bible
and flung it overboard."

I now reflected, with great sadness and self-reproach, on the way in
which I had neglected my Bible, and it flashed across me that I was
actually, in the sight of God, a greater sinner than this blood-stained
pirate; for, thought I, he tells me that he never read the Bible and was
never brought up to care for it, whereas I was carefully taught to read
it by my own mother, and had read it daily as long as I possessed one,
yet to so little purpose that I could not now call to mind a single text
that would meet this poor man's case and afford him the consolation he
so much required. I was much distressed, and taxed my memory for a long
time. At last a text did flash into my mind, and I wondered much that I
had not thought of it before.

"Bill," said I in a low voice, "`Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and
thou shalt be saved.'"

"Ay, Ralph, I've heard the missionaries say that before now; but what
good can it do me? It's not for me, that; it's not for the likes o'
me."

I knew not now what to say, for although I felt sure that that word was
for him as well as for me, I could not remember any other word whereby I
could prove it.

After a short pause,