to find that of the fireman it was not there, Towards morning
they found his cap; they knew it by the strange device--the anchor and
the cross emblazoned on its front, above the number of his company.

"A fitting death for him to die!" said clergymen, as they recalled his
bravery, the majesty of his mien, the benevolence of every action.

The news of the disaster spread through the city with the speed of
lightning. Friends hastened to the spot, and O, what joy for some to
find the loved one safe!--what worse than agony for others to gaze upon
the features of their search all locked in ghastly death! With
conflicting emotions, Delancey told May Edgerton of his last meeting
with the strange fireman. A gush of thankfulness shot through her heart
that he had not perished that dark night in Hurl Gate, that he had met
an honorable doom. Hal preserved his cap as an incentive to goodness and
greatness, and longed to be worthy to place on his own the mysterious
device of the stranger.

The funeral obsequies of the deceased firemen were celebrated by all the
pomp esteem could propose, or grief bestow. Mary Edgerton stood by the
window as the long ranks of firemen filed round the park, all wearing
the badge of mourning, the trumpets wreathed in crape, the banners
lowered, the muffled drums beating the sad march to the grave. All the
flags of the city were at half-mast, the fire bells tolled mournfully,
and when, wearied with their sorrowful duty, their cadences for a while
died away in gloomy silence, the bells of Trinity took up the wail in
chiming the requiem to the dead. Everywhere reigned breathless silence,
broken only by these sounds of woe.

As May gazed on the slow procession, her eye was attracted by the emblem
on a fireman's cap--it was the same--an anchor and a cross! That form,
it could be no other, the face was turned towards her, it was the
stranger fireman! His very step bespoke the man, as with folded arms and
solemn tread he followed in the funeral cortege.

That evening Hal Delancey returned home, his countenance beaming with
joy, in strange contrast with the gloom of the day. "May, he is safe
again!" was his first exclamation, "He is a perfect Neptune, Vulcan,
master of fire and flood. Neither the surging eddies of Hurl Gate, nor
ghastly flames and crashing beams have been able to overcome him. How he
escaped he scarcely knows, and yet he does not bear a scar. So skilful,
so agile, so brave, so dominant over