“Call all hands, Mr Bolton,” cried the captain in a sharp voice. “Get out the ice-poles, and lower away the boats.”
“Hallo! what’s wrong!” said Fred, starting up.
“Getting too near the bergs, I suspect,” remarked Tom. “I say, Fred, before we go on deck, will you promise to do what I ask you?”
“Well—yes, I will.”
“Will you promise, then, all through your life, especially if you ever come to be rich or influential, to think of and for old men and women who are poor?”
“I will,” answered Fred, “but I don’t know that I’ll ever be rich, or influential, or able to help them much.”
“Of course you don’t. But when a thought about them strikes you, will you always think it out, and, if possible, act it out, as God shall enable you?”
“Yes, Tom, I promise to do that as well as I can.”
“That’s right, thank you, my boy!” said the young surgeon, as they descended the shrouds and leaped on deck.
Here they found the captain walking up and down rapidly, with an anxious expression of face. After taking a turn or two he stopped short, and gazed out astern.