the expression
of the other's face. "Recollect, that as you say, you've been unable to
get any work here, so, why not go with me? I'm sure Captain Brown would
take you with us if you ask him."

"But I'm not a sailor," argued Fritz; "and, besides, if I were one,
going to sea would not be the way to make the fortune I have planned, so
that I may be able to return home and marry Madaleine."

"Ah, that dear Madaleine!" said Eric. "I wonder when I'll see her, and
whether I shall think her all that you describe? Never mind," he added,
seeing that Fritz appeared vexed at this speech, "I've no doubt she's a
beautiful maiden, and that you'll both be as happy as the day is long!
But, I'm going to speak about business now, my brother; and, if you
listen, you'll see that my idea of your coming in the _Pilot's Bride_ is
not such a wild-goose chase, after all."

"I confess I don't see it yet," interposed Fritz, with a smile at Eric's
boyish eagerness. "In what way will going whaling with Captain Brown
and your important self advance my fortunes?"

"Listen," said the other, "and I'll soon tell you. Do you recollect
when I was recounting my story, that after I was picked up from the boat
and taken on board the _Pilot's Bride_, I mentioned the fact of the ship
calling at Tristan d'Acunha?"

"Yes; and you also said that you would inform me of something important
about the place `bye-and-bye,' if you alluded then to what you're going
to tell me now."

"Precisely, `bye-and-bye' is `now,'" said Eric, laughing again and
tossing his mane-like hair back from his forehead in the old fashion.
"We landed at Tristan d'Acunha--"

"Where on earth is that place?" interrupted Fritz. "I've a confused
notion that it is an island of some sort; but, in what precise spot it
is situated, I'm sure I can't tell!"

"Well, then," commenced Eric grandiloquently--only too glad of the
opportunity of having to instruct his elder brother, who had been
regarded in the family circle as the centre of all wisdom--"`Tristan
d'Acunha' is the centre island of a group, so-called after the
Portuguese navigator who discovered them in the early beginning of the
sixteenth century. The islands are probably the most isolated and
remote of all the abodes of men, lying as they do almost in the middle
of the Atlantic Ocean, and nearly equidistant from the continents of
America and Africa; for, they are situated nearly on the line that could
be drawn between Cape H