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LONDON: HODDER AND
STOUGHTON 🙡 🙡 27
PATERNOSTER ROW : MCMII

PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO. LTD., NEW-STREET SQUARE
LONDON

TO
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A SMALL TOKEN OF THE AUTHOR’S ESTEEM
FOR A STRONG CHRISTIAN

CONTENTS

CHAPTERPAGE
I.[Unrequited Love]1
II.[‘Veni, Vidi, Vici’]9
III.[A Sudden Resolve]17
IV.[Departure]25
V.[Outward Bound]34
VI.[Disillusionment]43
VII.[A Stricken Demon]54
VIII.[A Disastrous Day]69
IX.[Reuben Eddy, Mariner]85
X.[The Good Ship ‘Xiphias’]99
XI.[At the Old Homestead]115
XII.[Repairing Damages] 130
XIII.[The Captain Goes Ashore]146
XIV.[Among Right Whales]162
XV.[A Double Deliverance]176
XVI.[A Reign of Terror]192
XVII.[Salvage Operations]207
XVIII.[Humanity Rewarded]221
XIX.[A Great Blow]236
XX.[The Cyclone]251
XXI.[A Strange Rescue]267
XXII.[The Meeting]283
XXIII.[Farewell to the Xiphias]297
XXIV.[Check to the King, and a New Move]311
XXV.[The Education of the Skipper]326
XXVI.[The Loss of the Grampus]344
XXVII. [And Last]361
[Works by the Same Author] 379

CHAPTER I

UNREQUITED LOVE

‘Yew don’ seem ter keer any gret amount fer me, Pris.’

The speaker was a young man of twenty or thereabouts, whose loosely jointed frame showed, even under the shapely rig of homespun, consisting of just a shirt and pants, a promise to the observant eye that he would presently develop into a man of massive mould. He lay upon the stubbly ground, his head resting on one arm, looking wistfully up into the face of a girl about his own age. His clean-shaven face wore that keenness of outline so characteristic of the true Yankee blend in which the broad Saxon or Frisian features seem to have been modified by the sharp facial angles of the indigenous owners of the soil. But in the softness of his grey eyes a close observer would have foreseen a well of trouble springing up for their owner on behalf of others. It was the face of the typical burden-bearer.