the sad father in all
the quiet dignity of calm, unfathomable sorrow.

Another gentleman stood upon the rug with his back to the fire, waiting
for Mr. Wardlaw; this was the family physician, who had just come down
from Arthur's bedroom, and had entered by another door through the
drawing-room.

"Well, doctor," said Wardlaw, anxiously, "what is your report?"

"Not so good as I could wish; but nothing to excite immediate alarm.
Overtaxed brain, sir, weakened and unable to support this calamity.
However, we have reduced the fever; the symptoms of delirium have been
checked, and I think we shall escape brain fever if he is kept quiet. I
could not have said as much this morning."

The doctor then took his leave, with a promise to call next morning; and,
as soon as he was gone, Wardlaw turned to General Rolleston, and said,
"Here _is_ Wylie, sir. Come forward, my man, and speak to the general. He
wants to know if you can point out to him on the chart the very spot
where the _Proserpine_ was lost?"

"Well, sir," said Wylie, "I think I could."

The great chart of the Pacific was then spread out upon the table, and
rarely has a chart been examined as this was, with the bleeding heart as
well as the straining eye.

The rough sailor became an oracle; the others hung upon his words, and
followed his brown finger on the chart with fearful interest.

"Ye see, sir," said he, addressing the old merchant--for there was
something on his mind that made him avoid speaking directly to General
Rolleston--"when we came out of Sydney, the wind being south and by
west, Hudson took the northerly course instead of running through Cook's
Straits. The weather freshened from the same quarter, so that, with one
thing and another, by when we were a month out, she was five hundred
miles or so nor'ard of her true course. But that wasn't all; when the
leak gained on us, Hudson ran the ship three hundred miles by my
reckoning to the nor'east; and, I remember, the day before she foundered,
he told me she was in latitude forty, and Easter Island bearing due
north."

"Here is the spot, then," said General Rolleston, and placed his finger
on the spot.

"Ay, sir," said Wylie, addressing the merchant; "but she ran about
eighty-five miles after that, on a northerly course--no--wind on her
starboard quarter--and, being deep in the water, she'd make lee way--say
eighty-two miles, nor'east by east." The general took eighty-two miles
off the scale, with