he lad would he believe such an announcement. It was not until Derry's
blunt confirmation made sure the fearful tidings, that the dying man
would believe that he stood on the brink of eternity.

We draw the curtain on the horrors of the scenes that followed. May it
never be the reader's lot to hear the desperate cries of a ruined soul
about to meet its God.

The transgressor must eat of the fruit of his choice, and sink into the
pit towards which his face has been resolutely set. The _wages_ of sin
is death.

Vain were the pleadings of Blair, and the rougher urgency of Derry,
calling on the dying man to lift his eyes to the cross of Christ, trust,
and be saved.

With a fearful howl of anguish the condemned soul took its flight; while
his companions, awe-struck, prayed God to spare them such a doom.

On the dark waters the body of Brimstone was cast, to be seen no more
until it should rise at the last day, we fear, to the resurrection of
damnation.

Lost seemed the labors of Blair Robertson for the good of his worthless
shipmate; but no prayerful effort for the holy cause is vain. Blair had
other listeners than the ear to which he spoke. Unconscious of all
around him, he had but striven to touch and uplift the soul of the dying
man. The group of sailors gathered round the departing wretch would soon
be scattered far and wide on the rolling seas, thousands of miles from
the home of Blair Robertson, and the solemn truths he had spoken might
spring up in their hearts and bear fruit unto eternal life.

CHAPTER XIX.

HOME.

A light fall of snow had clothed all Fairport in white, and whispered in
the ears of lingering birds that they had better be off for the "sunny
south," ere old winter had fairly begun his icy reign. Cold and dark,
the waters of the harbor lay encircled by the pure and glistening land.
Cheerful wood fires were warming many a hearth-stone, while wives and
mothers thought of their absent ones on the sea, and hoped and prayed no
chilling storm might be rending their sails and perilling the lives so
precious to home and native land.

Mrs. Robertson had suffered from many anxious thoughts since the
departure of her brave son. But hers was not a timid or a repining
spirit. She knew that the same eye watched over him on sea as on land;
and the almighty arm could protect him as well upon the deep waters, as
in the shelter of his mother's fireside.

Fairport glasses had plainly seen the British