The order was given; the engines stop, and the boat lowered, and into it leaped Toney and the Professor; while six seamen manned the oars. The boat put off from the vessel; and the sailors pulling with a will, they were soon approaching the shore. Several men were seen standing on a rock, and one of them was waving a white handkerchief. They cheered, and were responded to by the loud huzzas of the party in the boat, which grounded within a few yards of the shore. The Professor's gaze was intently fixed on some object at the base of the rock.
It was a young and beautiful woman. She was standing, with her eyes upturned and her hands clasped, as if thanking Heaven for their deliverance.
The Professor leaped into the water, and rushed to the beach. He stood for a moment gazing at the beautiful girl. He then rushed forward and exclaimed,—
"Dora!"
As she heard his voice she started, and then, with a joyful cry of recognition, uttered his name, and was caught in his arms as, overcome with emotion, she was falling to the ground.
CHAPTER LI.
Major Stanhope, the father of Dora, and an officer in the army of the United States, had been stationed at San Francisco. His wife was dead and he had no child except Dora. They had resided in California about a year, when the gallant soldier, who had never recovered from the effects of a wound received in the storming of Chapultepec, found his health rapidly failing, and was soon removed to another sphere of existence. Dora's nearest relative, her father's sister, resided in the State of Virginia, and the young girl had taken passage on a vessel bound for Panama, with the intention of returning to the place of her nativity and residing with her aunt. The vessel was old and unseaworthy, and went to pieces in a violent storm encountered off the coast of Lower California. The boats in which the crew and passengers sought safety were swamped, with the exception of one, which reached the shore in a leaky condition; and if the Professor had not happened to take up the captain's telescope when he did, Dora and the six other human beings, who were thus discovered, would have perished on that desolate coast.
In a romantic valley of the Old Dominion Dora and the Professor had known each other in former days. The young man had tenderly loved the beautiful maiden, and his affection was secretly reciprocated; but on a certain occasion, while under the influence of temporary pique or caprice, Dora had rejected the man whom she deeply and sincerely loved, and they met no more, until, after the lapse of seven long years, fate brought them together on the shores of the Pacific Ocean.