brought you here."

"All right," said Charley. "More biscuit, please. Now I sing song to
you, Dick," and the little chap struck up the stave of a ditty which
Dick had taught him, evidently feeling in no way alarmed at the fearful
position in which he was placed.

"I think, Charley, you should say your prayers," said Dick, who had
taught the boy those he had himself learned in his childhood. "Ask God
to take care of you, Charley; for I am sure if He does not no one else
will, either here or anywhere else. He hears your prayers as well as
big people's, so don't be afraid of asking Him for what you want; and
just now I have a notion we want Him to send a ship this way to pick us
up."

Charley turned round, and kneeling up in his basket, lifted his small
hands towards the blue sky, and asked the kind Father he believed dwelt
there to take care of him and Dick, and send a ship to pick them up.

Dick gazed affectionately at the child as he prayed.

"That's done me good," he said to himself. "I am sure He who lives up
there will do what that innocent little cherub asks. What He would say
if a rough wild chap like me was to pray, is a different matter; and yet
I mind that mother used to tell me He will hear any one who is sorry for
what they have done amiss, and trust to His Son who died for sinners.
But it's a hard matter to mind all the bad things a man like me has
done, and I hope He ain't so over particular with respect to poor
sailors."

Dick at length, mustering courage, knelt by the side of the child, the
calm sea allowing him to do so without the danger of falling off. His
prayer might not have been, as he expressed it, very ship-shape; the
chief expression in it was, "Lord be merciful to me a sinner, and take
care of little Charley here and me, if such a one as I am is worth
looking after."

At length Dick resumed his seat by the side of his charge. The sun came
down with intense heat, but he managed, by turning the raft round with
his paddle, and lifting the lid of the basket, to shelter Charley from
its burning rays. The child sat up and looked about him, prattling away
frequently in a lingo Dick could not understand: sometimes also he spoke
a little English, which he seemed to have known before he came on board
the _Laurel_, but since then he had picked up a good many words. Dick
now tried to amuse him and himself by teaching him more, and as the
child learned rapidly whatever he heard, he already