and noble resolve on the part of our young friend."

"Doctor!"

"It has troubled me this year past that no effort has been made to find
the professor, who, I have no doubt, is somewhere in the interior of the
island, and I have been for some time making plans to go after him
myself."

Nurse Brown's jaw dropped, and she stared in speechless amazement.

"Hurray, doctor!" I cried.

"And I say hurray too, Joe," he cried. "I'll go with you, my lad, and
we'll bring him back, with God's help, safe and sound."

The shout I gave woke Jimmy, who sprang to his feet, dragged a boomerang
from his waistband, and dashed to the door to throw it at somebody, and
then stopped.

"You'll break his mother's heart, doctor," sobbed nurse. "Oh! if she
was to hear what you've said!"

"I did hear every word," said my mother, entering from the next room,
and looking very white.

"There, there," cried nurse, "you wicked boy, see what you've done."

"Mother!" I cried, as I ran to her and caught her--poor, little, light,
delicate thing that she was--in my arms.

"My boy!" she whispered back, as she clung to me.

"I must go. I will find him. I'm sure he is not dead."

"And so am I," she cried, with her eyes lighting up and a couple of red
spots appearing in her cheeks. "I could not feel as I do if he were
dead."

Here she broke down and began to sob, while I, with old nurse's eyes
glaring at me, began to feel as if I had done some horribly wicked act,
and that nothing was left for me to do but try to soothe her whose heart
I seemed to have broken.

"Oh, mother! dear mother," I whispered, with my lips close to her little
pink ear, "I don't want to give you pain, but I feel as if I must--I
must go."

To my utter astonishment she laid her hands upon my temples, thrust me
from her, and gazing passionately in my great sun-browned face she bent
forward, kissed me, and said:

"Yes, yes. You've grown a great fellow now. Go? Yes, you must go.
God will help you, and bring you both safely back."

"Aw--ugh! Aw--ugh! Aw--ugh!" came from the verandah, three hideous
yells, indicative of the fact that Jimmy--the half-wild black who had
attached himself to me ever since the day I had met him spear-armed, and
bearing that as his only garment over the shoulder, and I shared with
him the bread and mutton I had taken for my expedition--was in a state
of the utmost grief. In fact, he had thrown himself down on the sand,
and was wallow