up in your favour, and therefore I have remained, hoping, under God's
providence, to be the means of assisting you and your family in this
sore position. I think now it would be better that you should go down
into the cabin, and with a cheerful face encourage poor Mrs. Seagrave
with the change in the weather, and the hopes of arriving in some place
of safety. If she does not know that the men have quitted the ship, do
not tell her; say that the steward is with the other men, which will be
true enough, and, if possible, leave her in the dark as to what has
taken place. Master William can be trusted, and if you will send him
here to me, I will talk to him."

"I hardly know what to think, Ready, or how sufficiently to thank you
for your self-devotion, if I may so term it, in this exigency. That
your advice is excellent and that I shall follow it, you may be
assured; and, should we be saved from the death which at present stares
us in the face, my gratitude--"

"Do not speak of that, sir; I am an old man with few wants, and whose
life is of little use now. All I wish to feel is, that I am trying to
do my duty in that situation into which it has pleased God to call me.
What can this world offer to one who has roughed it all his life, and
who has neither kith nor kin that he knows of to care about his death?"

Mr. Seagrave pressed the hand of Ready, and went down without making
any reply. He found that his wife had been asleep for the last hour,
and was not yet awake. The children were also quiet in their beds. Juno
and William were the only two who were sitting up.

William made a sign to his father that his mother was asleep, and then
said in a whisper, "I did not like to leave the cabin while you were on