"All hands ashore!"
The moment of life and death had come. He started up; he strained his daughter to his breast. He gasped:
"God bless you, my dear! Write as soon as you land!"
He wrung the hand of Lord Vincent. "Be good to—" He choked, and hurried from the steamer.
He stood alone on the pier gazing at the receding ship, and at his daughter, who was leaning over the bulwarks, waving her handkerchief. Swiftly, swiftly, receded the ship from his strained sight. First his daughter's face faded from his aching vision; but still he could see the outline of her form. A minute or two and even that grew indistinct and was lost among the rigging. And while he was still straining his eyes to the cracking, in the effort to see her, the signal gun from the steamer was fired. The farewell gun! The ball seemed to strike his own heart. All his strength forsook him; his well-strung nerves suddenly relaxed; his limbs gave way beneath him, and he must have fallen but for the strong arms that suddenly clasped him and the warm bosom that firmly supported him.
Turning up his languid, fainting eyes, he saw—
"Ishmael!"
Yes, it was Ishmael, who with a son's devotion was standing there and sustaining Claudia's forsaken father in the hour of his utter weakness and utmost need.
At first the judge looked at him in surprise and incredulity, which soon, however, gave way before recognition and affection, as he rested on that true breast and met those beautiful eyes bent on him in deepest sympathy.
"Oh, Ishmael, Ishmael, is it you? is it indeed you? You here at need? Oh, my son, my son, would to the Lord that you were indeed my son! It is a grief and folly that you are not!" he exclaimed with emotion.