WRITTEN FOR "THE SHIPWRECKED MARINER," BY THE AUTHOR OF JACK

In the early part of the present century, when the old salts who had served their king and country were resting their weary bones in the haven provided for them by a grateful country at Greenwich, winter had set in with unwonted severity, and the ground was carpeted with snow.

Bob Kilson, a lad of fifteen, appeared as the leader of a gang of boys engaged in making snow-houses and figures, and occasionally snow-balling a passing pensioner, when unobserved. A large figure was built up with wonderful alacrity, and not without skill, in front of the quadrangle by the boys. Master Bob, seizing the cocked hat of a wooden-legged pensioner who was unable to follow him, placed it on the head of the figure, when the crowd of juveniles danced round it, shouting "The Admiral!" The poor old tar, who felt the north-west wind on his bare head, was utterly helpless for the moment, when a young lady who witnessed the occurrence from a window in the Hospital, rushed out, and with a determined air reproached the boys for their cruelty to the old man, and restoring the hat to the owner, whispered a few words of consolation as she dropped a coin into the hand of the grateful

veteran.

A slight circumstance determines character; the girl-for she was but a girl-showed no fear in the presence of this unruly crowd. A handsome face, with strong lineaments suggestive of her Norman descent-a courage and determination not to be expected in one so young-withal, a gentle tenderness gave to her features a pleasing expression. Bob Kilson, an impetuous youth, seeing his error, manfully came forward to apologise to the old tar, and respectfully touching his hat to the lady, dispersed the crowd of boys, who had by this time pulled "The Admiral" to pieces.

The young lady afterwards became the wife of a great captain and famous

navigator; and, as Mrs. Frank, accompanied her husband to the ends of the earth, sharing his sorrows and his joys, cheering him in adversity, and rendering supremely happy his moments of prosperity. Bob Kilson became an able seaman in Her Majesty's service; in due time he was promoted to the rank of boatswain, and found himself serving under Captain Frank, in whose lady he recognized the spirited girl who had rebuked him as a boy; this circumstance tended to attach him more closely to the commander, for whom he felt a reverence and respect apart from what their relative positions, demanded.

Years had passed, and the great navigator was selected to pursue his researches, which the interests of Science and Commerce demanded, amidst the great icy seas of the Polar regions. It was not without a feeling of presentiment that Mrs. Frank parted from her husband, but her brave spirit did not display even a semblance of despondency when the time arrived to say "farewell.".

[Bob Kilson, too, had married the girl he loved, whom he left with a babyboy to mourn his absence in the unknown regions of the North Pole.

For months and months the good ship weathered the storm, till at length, becoming embedded in the ice, she was abandoned, and the explorers proceeded over land, if land it could be called. Bravely they buffeted the fierce cutting wind and the blinding snow, till death reduced their party to a mere handful. The gallant captain, formed by nature to command, shared the sufferings of his officers and men, and sustained their drooping spirits, but still they succumbed one by one, till at length a change came over the entire physique of the few survivors in that dreadful solitude. The fact of being compelled to look at the same faces day by day and hour by hour, sickening unto death, with the horrid accessories of vast masses of ice, blinding snow, the absence of vegetation, sunshine, or sound of any kind save the dismal wail of the wind and the utter loneliness of the scene, tends to affect the brain and reverse all the natural faculties of man. Even the faithful dogs weary, wonder, and grow sad, dying from sheer loneliness. Verily, it is a scene of desolationan illimitable wilderness of ice, before, behind, and all around them; sickness and sorrow and death in their midst—helpless to aid one another; and, as if in mockery of their position, the sun appears as a huge red orb in the heavens, giving out no heat or comfort, but testifying by its presence the advent of a long, dreary, hopeless Polar night.

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Captain Frank, feeling that his end was drawing near, crawled to an icy eminence, and looking intently at the sun as it neared the horizon, faintly called Kilson-now one of the few survivors to his side. The faithful boatswain dragged himself along, respectfully saluting his captain, who said: Kilson, we are on an equality now that we are at the point of death; give me your hand! On earth it is ordained that there should be grades of men, not so in the home over there!" and pointing towards the sky, the aged chief exhorted his shipmate to look aloft, saying, "God's will be done!" Then turning towards the south, he threw a bewildered and agonizing look into the impenetrable gloom beyond; for the first time a tear started to his eye, which was instantly frozen up, as he exclaimed, thinking of the wife he left at home, "We are separated, not disunited!" The brave man then turned fixedly towards the drooping sun, when a calm, almost seraphic glow suffused his features, as if, through that icy prism of the frozen tear, a ray from the Beatific Vision had reached his soul; and, as his body sunk into the gloaming, his brave spirit (for he was a true Christian) fluttered as it were for a moment then floated away into the twilight of Eternal Day.

An account of this scene was afterwards discovered in a cairn, but it is not within the ken of living man to tell who the last survivor of that expedition was, or to paint his emotions when he felt himself alone in that awful solitude, with the ghastly faces of his dead shipmates staring at him, ere reason was as yet unshattered, ere the life blood froze in his veins, and Death claimed him as the final victim.

Let us hope that—

"As the trial was intenser here,

His being hath a noble strength in heaven.”

CHAPTER III.-SOLITUDE IN THE CITY.

We are now in the Great City; time is rolling on, and winter has set in; the snow is falling on the houses and in the streets, and people are ranged round the glowing hearth who can afford a fire, while those who cannot are shivering in cellars and garrets and under railway arches. From the window of a West-end mansion, in a room facing the north, a lady looks listlessly, regardless of the cold or the dancing snow-flakes, in the direction of the north. This is Mrs. Frank. A volume of Tennyson lays open before her; and as she peers into vacancy, "like one entranced on viewless air," her finger rests on the line

"Break, thou deep vase of chilling tears,

That grief hath shaken into frost."

From a window in a back street in Greenwich, similarly situate, a pale, respectably-dressed woman may be seen looking listlessly n the same direcon. This is Bob Kilson's widow. The lady in the mansion and the woman

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in the back window of the street are both inconsolable; their thoughts run in the same direction. How came these two women to act alike? Was it a secret bond of sympathy that caused them to recognize in the little dancing snow-flakes messengers of comfort, or was it typical of the melting away of all hope?

Christmas comes and Christmas goes, but there is no joy for the occupants of the mansion nor of the humble dwelling.

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Mrs. Kilson's little boy had been playing in the snow, and came in, his cheeks ruddy with health and warm from the exercise." Mother," said he "how is it the snow melts on my cheeks and not on yours?" Whereupon she brushed away two patches of snow that had lain on her pale cheeks, of which she was unconscious, and kissing her boy tried to evade the question. Bob," said she, "promise me if you ever go to sea you will not be tempted to sail to those icy regions." "I will, mother," said the boy; "but you will tell me some day all about it, and why father never came home." She said she would, and turning to attend to her household duties, tried to look cheerful.

Another expedition having been organised and equipped at her own expense, Mrs. Frank, being of a refined and cultivated mind, employed the interval in travel. She left England, and visited many scenes in Europe and Asia, where she acquired a store of knowledge which rendered her the charm of the society in which she moved. But there was the one all absorbing sorrow, which, stifle it as she would, still possessed her soul. At length the time had arrived when all hope being dissipated, she became resigned and reconciled to the loss of her husband. The expedition returned, bringing certain relics and undoubted evidence of the fearful sufferings and certain death of the great navigator and his gallant band.

Grief, if nursed and suffered to feed on itself, becomes a passion and a crime; it unfits one for the ordinary duties of life, renders its possessor selfish, and all about him miserable. Mrs. Frank feeling this, yielded to the inevitable, and trained her mind for further travel and enlarged ideas. Once more she departed, gaining and imparting knowledge, and meeting with naught but sympathy and respect.

She did not leave, however, without laying the foundation of a good work, as will be seen, which was carried on by deputy, who was also the vehicle for many acts of charity and kindness.

CHAPTER IV.-SOLITUDE IN THE DESERT.

Young Kilson, whose predilection for the sea was inherited from his late father, notwithstanding the tragic fate of the brave seaman, of which he was duly informed by his mother, joined the Mercantile Marine, and in due time became an able seaman. True to the promise made to his mother, he avoided the Arctic seas, and voyaged to the Mediterranean and subsequently to India.

When at Zanzibar, after narrowly escaping shipwreck, he voluntered to join an expedition then being organised to the interior of Africa, where the heroic Livingstone laid down his life a martyr to Science, Christianity, and Civilization. Mrs. Kilson retired to a village on the South Coast, where she fancied, perhaps, being near the sea, she would be the first to greet her son on his return.

Through dismal and fœtid swamps the young sailor, who was imbued, like his father, with true Christian principles, followed his leader, a man of undaunted courage, firmness, and endurance, through the dry and arid desert, where the vultures were seen still lingering about the remains of a hapless dromedary, and casting wistful eyes on the cavalcade as it passed. Onward went this band of adventurers, up rugged hills of primeval rock, down through ravine and jungle, with no guide save the unerring compass. The sun burned fiercely over their heads. That same sun which sent its oblique rays across the icy sea and denied its heat to the Arctic voyagers, now penetrated to the very brain and made the blood boil: even the dusky natives succumbed one by one, but on pushed the intrepid leader till the party arrived exhausted in a thickly-wooded forest, where the cedar, the cypress, and the gigantic palm reared their lofty heads and the tropical plants bloomed in native loveliness.

It was here in the midst of a grove of acacias where the foot of man had never trod before, the exploring party pitched their camp. A mountain brook descending in a lovely cascade, formed itself into a lake ere it pursued its lonely course and discharged into the mighty river beyond.

On this lake the Victoria Regia bloomed in its majestic beauty, while numerous water-fowl gambolled unmolested on its leafy islets; the gorgeous plumage of the numerous birds hopping from bough to bough, from light to shade, contributed to the beauty of the scene.

It was here that young Kilson succumbed to the fever which was on him for days before. Even as the weary soldier walks asleep on the line of march, this brave youth moved mechanically on while the fatal disease was within him, and as he gasped for a cooling draught and wished the mountains above him were of ice, he thought in a lucid moment of the cold bed whereon his dead father lay, and a shivering chill came upon him. He, too, looked up towards that sun, as his father had done years before, and heaved a deep sigh. If that last sigh were borne across the bosom of that lake, down the rivulet into the great river, and along the mighty ocean, it would have whispered a tale into his lonely mother's ear that would cause her cup of misery to overflow.

Adjoining his leafy couch there grew a great shrub of the cactus family, a carniverous plant, clasped in whose petals, as in a snare, were to be seen the remains of many large insects and small animals.*

* The habits of carniverous plants have lately become an interesting study. In Borneo, and several parts of India, they are said to attain a great size, and capable