General Rolleston paced that large and gloomy room in
silence. Wardlaw eyed him with the greatest interest, but avoided
speaking to him. At last he stopped short, and stood erect, as veterans
halt, and pointed down at the chart.

"I'll start at once for that spot," said he. "I'll go in the next ship
bound to Valparaiso: there I'll charter a small vessel, and ransack those
waters for some trace of my poor lost girl."

"Can you think of no better way than that?" said old Wardlaw, gently, and
with a slight tone of reproach.

"No--not at this moment. Oh, yes, by the by, the _Greyhound_ and
_Dreadnaught_ are going out to survey the islands of the Pacific. I have
interest enough to get a berth in the _Greyhound."_

"What! go in a government ship! under the orders of a man, under the
orders of another man, under the orders of a board. Why, if you heard our
poor girl was alive upon a rock, the _Dreadnaught_ would be sure to run
up a bunch of red-tape to the fore that moment to recall the _Greyhound,_
and the _Greyhound_ would go back. No," said he, rising suddenly, and
confronting the general, and with the color mounting for once in his
sallow face, "you sail in no bottom but one freighted by Wardlaw & Son,
and the captain shall be under no orders but yours. We have bought the
steam-sloop _Springbok_, seven hundred tons. I'll victual her for a
year, man her well, and you shall go out in her in less than a week. I
give you my hand on that."

They grasped hands.

But this sudden warmth and tenderness, coming from a man habitually cold,
overpowered the stout general. "What, sir," he faltered; "your own son
lies in danger, yet your heart goes so with me--such goodness--it is too
much for me."

"No, no," faltered the merchant, affected in his turn; "it is nothing.
Your poor girl was coming home in that cursed ship to marry my son. Yes,
he lies ill for love of her; God help him and me too; but you most of
all. Don't, general; don't! We have got work to do; we must be brave,
sir; brave, I say, and compose ourselves. Ah, my friend, you and I are of
one age; and this is a heavy blow for us. And we are friends no more; it
has made us brothers. She was to be my child as well as yours; well, now
she _is_ my child, and our hearts they bleed together." At this, the
truth must be told, the two stout old men embraced one another like two
women, and cried together a little.

But that was soon over with such men as these. They sat to