s had been touched in a most tender manner, and
he had done more thinking during the last few hours than in all his
previous life.

The only one on the proa who was on duty was Fred, who held the
steering-oar in place, while the curiously-shaped vessel sped through
the water. The sea was very calm and the wind so slight that they
were in reality going slower than at any previous time, and the task
of guiding the boat was hardly a task at all.

Fred sat looking up at the stars half the time, with his memory and
conscience doing their work. His two men had lain down, and were
asleep, for they were regular in all their habits, and he had seen
nothing of Inez since she had withdrawn to her "apartment."

Mate Storms kept up a fragmentary conversation with the young captain
until quite late, when he withdrew, and Fred was left with himself for
fully two hours, when Mr. Bergen crept softly forth and took a seat
near him, even getting in such a position that he would have been very
much in the way had any emergency arisen. The captain was disposed to
talk--somewhat to Fred's dislike--for he was in that mood when he
desired to be alone; but he was also in a more gracious and charitable
temper than usual, and he answered the old captain quite kindly.

"You've a good deal to be thankful for," said he, in reply to the
remark above given. "But my mother has been in heaven for many a
year."

"She is fortunate, after all," said the captain, with a sigh, and a
far-away look over the moonlit sea.

"Yes, a great deal more fortunate than her son will ever be."

"It all depends on you, young man," said the captain, severely.
"Heaven is reached step by step, and there's no one who cannot make
it. If you haven't started in the right direction, now's the time to
do so."

Fred Sanders may have assented to this, but he was silent, and he,
too, looked off over the sea as if his thoughts were running in a new
and unaccustomed channel. "My mother must be a very old woman by this
time," added the captain, after a minute or more of silence, during
which nothing but the rushing of the water was heard.

"How old is she?" asked Fred.

"She must be close on to eighty; and I think she's dead, for she was
very feeble when I saw her, three years ago, in San Francisco. But I'm
going to see her very soon; yes, very soon--very soon."

"It's a long way to 'Frisco," ventured Fred, mildly; "but I hope you
will have a quick voyage."

"I am not goi