came within his reach, and to haul upon the rope round his waist. During all this terrible scene,--louder than the roar of the cyclone, rang in his ear his mother's parting words: "Remember, this is your work. Before God, I hold you responsible for him. Bring him back to me safe and well, or never look upon my face again!" And it was he who had tempted him on board that ill-fated ship!

Well, he had saved him-so far. There he was senseless, bleeding, but alive; by his side on the sand-bank, on which God willed that the waves should cast them. Only a few yards on each hand were rocks, against which it would have been sudden death to be flung.

The cyclone ended almost as suddenly as it had begun, and when the sun rose they could realise their position. There was the headland standing up bluff out of the deep water, and on both sides of it long coral reefs broken only by the little cove into which they had so fortunately been cast. Behind was the dense, impenetrable South American forest. Where were they? Somewhere on the uninhabited coast of Colombia, between Carthagena and Portobello; but at what point within a few hundred miles, it was impossible to say. Harry-quite broken down by his misfortunes-was like a child relying for everything upon George, and George determined to take up their quarters on the headland. There, there were a few cocoa palms, the fruit of which would provide the only drink they could hope to get. Besides, if any ship, blown out of her course by the tempest, were to pass, a signal made there would be better seen. No vestige of the schooner remained. The bodies of the mate and one of the Indians, frightfully mutilated by the rocks, were cast ashore the following day, and George buried them. Harry wore a little gold box for cigar lights slung to his watch-chain, and which, luckily, shut so closely as to be water-tight. This was of inestimable service, for it provided them with fire-fire to cook the crabs, with which the rocks abounded, for their food, and fire to act as a signal of distress. All day long a dense black flag of smoke, caused by smouldering grass, went up from the headland; and all night dead wood and dry palm leaves carefully collected by George, sent up bright flames.

It was hard work trying to get Harry to be hopeful. He gave way to despair, and at times was hardly rational. It was so hard, so very hard for him, with his hopes, his position, to be thus cast away; and still the thought, what a grand subject for glorification this shipwreck would be if he ever got home, was constantly before his mind. This, however, made him make the worst of everything. It would never do to have to admit that after all he had enough to eat and drink, that the climate was splendid. He resolved to be a martyr, and growled at all that was done for him, doing nothing for himself. At last he got ill out of sheer laziness and ill temper.

George roofed in a crevice between two rocks with palm leaves;

spread him a bed of dry grass, and worked like a slave to make him comfortable, vary his diet, and cheer him up.

"I have a presentiment," he said, one day, "that we shall get away. My presentiment of evil on board that wretched schooner was true, why shouldn't my presentiment of good be true also? It's only a question of time, and time don't matter so much to you—you know." Harry," he added, after a pause, seating himself beside his halfbrother, and taking his hand," My dear one's face is seldom out of my dreams, but for the last three or four nights it has seemed closer, clearer, more sweet than ever. A good omen, Harry!"

Harry threw up his hand, and told him to stop that nonsense, and leave him alone. Left alone, he began to pass the words of hope through his jaundiced mind, and to turn them sour. Time did not so much matter to him, indeed! Why he might waste months, years, of his life in that cursed spot. Addy might forget him, and listen to one of those brutes in scarlet and gold, who were always clanking about after her at county balls, or driving over to the rectory in more sober attire, on some excuse or other. So long as he was present, there was no danger, of course; but now- -! And to be told time did not matter-to be maundered at about her-George's her--the blacksmith's girl (as Harry pictured her) with a snub nose and red hands, who would sit on the edge of a chair in an ill-made frock and giggle. George was a fool-worse than a fool!-he was thoroughly heartless and full of nothing but self. Thus he worried himself, till he cried with ill temper and weakness, for he was now really ill.

George came back at night with an odd expression on his face, half grave, half glad. "I've made a discovery," he said, "which may prove important. We have nearly used up the cocoa nuts here, so I went over to that bluff, about a mile and a half to the eastward, for some fresh ones, and there I found what looks uncommonly like a track into the forest. I followed it a little way, but as I did not like to leave you alone in the dark, I came back."

"It

"I'm not a child, that I should be frightened at the dark.” "Then there is the fire," George continued, not heeding him. wouldn't do to throw away a chance by letting that out. Now, I'll tell you what I mean to do. I'll cook you what you will want for the day before it's light, take some grub and a cocoa for drink, and start at daybreak to explore. If it be a track, it must lead somewhere." "Take me with you, George."

"Better not. I can go faster and farther than you could, weak as you are. No, let me go alone. If I find a village, I'll come back directly. If I find nothing, I'll return in time to be with you at sunset."

"You won't abandon me, George?"

"Abandon you-I! My poor boy, you are worse than I thought. Does your head ache? Are you cold ?"

VOL. XXXI.

G

He knelt and felt his head and pulse, as he spoke. To his single, unselfish mind that idea of abandonment was a sick man's fancy, not worth refuting.

He was off on his exploration before sunrise, and Harry spent the day fretting about Addy. And yet he did not love her not love her, I mean, as a real man should love. It would be great kudos to win her. It would be a sort of slight upon him if another cut him out. He warmed at the thought of her beauty, but he did not love her. It was not in his nature to love anything but himself. If a more beautiful, a more difficult, than Addy were to arise, and be run after by half the county in her stead, he would have followed the new star. He thought be loved her, with the purest, truest affection that ever was known (just as he thought that he did everything else in the best and grandest style), and it was horribly galling to think he might have to wear the willow, simply because he was not on the spot to win the laurel.

George came back a little later than he had promised, footsore, wearied out, but hopeful.

"It is a track," he said, "that's certain. I went along at an average rate of three miles an hour (for you cannot go ahead because of the branches), until about one o'clock, rested a bit, and then came back. I suppose I've been over forty miles."

"What makes you sure it is a track?"

"Two things. There are machetto marks on some of the trees, and over a place which looks like the dry bed of a stream, I found a sort of rough and ready bridge."

"Let us go-let us start to-morrow!" cried Harry, eagerly.

"No, no! that won't do. You're not up to it yet, nor I either. It's harder work than you think breaking through these tracks. I've got a plan. I'll get a lot of cocoas together to-morrow, and the next day, if you're well enough to be left, I'll take as many as I can carry and go on for twenty-four hours straight an end. I'll leave some cocoas here and there, so that when you have to come afterwards with me we can go more slowly, and be sure of something to eat."

66 What nonsense, when we can pick cocoas as we go!"

"They only grow within a mile or so of the sea," replied George, quietly. "Without a gun, or the means of catching bird or beast, we should starve in the forest. I did not see even a berry we could eat. And this reminds me that I'm awfully hungry. Is there anything left ?"

"Yes, some of those beastly crabs you roasted."

"Blessed crabs, you mean; what should we have done without them? Really, Harry, if that path has even an Indian tribe at the end of it, and we get away to a port, we ought to be made lions of Your usual shipwrecked mariner gets all he wants from the wreck,

or finds it in some supernatural manner. Here we have nothingnot even a knife or a scrap of iron to make one-not even a flint. Robinson Crusoe was a sybarite compared to us. Philip Quarle lived like an alderman, and the 'Swiss Family Robinson-but I don't believe in them, they preached too much, and found all they wanted in a bag, including tobacco. Oh, Lord! what wouldn't I give now for a pipe!"

He had finished his "blessed" crabs as he spoke, and then laid himself down at the entrance of Harry's door. He had not had time to make a den for himself. Presently he rose with a start, went off to the fire on the headland, and piled on fresh wood. Harry had attended to it during the day.

Harry was in a much better humour than usual that night. There was hope in that forest path, and he liked to think he was a greater man than Robinson Crusoe. He talked a good deal about what they would do, and how they would do it, until George, who had been a bad listener, broke out:

"I tell you what it is, Harry, I'm done. I can't keep my eyes open to save my life. As you seem so much better to-night would you mind watching an hour-just one hour-by the fire? Path or no path, we must not let that out; and the dead wood burns so quickly. Come back and wake me in an hour, and I'll relieve you as brisk as a bee. And look here, take my coat and throw it over your shoulders. You're not accustomed to be out at night."

He was not indeed. It struck him, as George began to speak, that to rival Robinson Crusoe it might be necessary to do something, and how nice it would be to describe to Addy how he watched alone all night by the lonely beacon, gazing out into the sailless sea and thinking of her! So the request had hardly left tired George's lips when he jumped up.

"Mind you come back and wake me in an hour," George insisted. "And don't be foolish-take the coat. I'll creep into your nest, and be as snug as snug."

So Harry went out and tended the fire on the headland, which was close at hand, though the beacon could not be seen from the place they had chosen for their habitation, because, for the sake of shade, they had gone straight under the bluff on the land side, whereas the fire blazed on the point nearest the sea. He did think of Addy, as he kept his watch. Ah, all her quilps and pretty coquettish scoffs at him would be stingless now-man and hero that he was.

The great are always generous. He gave George a good two hours, and then went back to the den. George was sleeping profoundly outside, having found it too hot within, with such a happy smile on his face. "I suppose he's dreaming of that girl," thought Harry. "Well, the fire will burn another half hour, I'll let him rest."

If he had had a book he could have read it, so bright was the starlight, but having none, he stood and tried to read George, wondering how so commonplace a fellow could be in love, or, what was stranger still, how any girl could love him. He had told Harry that he thought she liked him, and, hang the fellow! he never thought anything without some reason. Yes, he would succeed. How happy he looked!

Ha! what was that he murmured? A name-a woman's name"Addy-my darling-my own Addy!" So that girl's name was Adelaide, too, thought Harry; and he has the bad taste to call her Addy! That must be put a stop to. There could only be one Addy in the family, and she was his.

As Harry thus pondered his half-brother turned in his sleep, and something fastened to a fine gold chain fell across his bare chest. "I'll be bound it is her likeness," sneered Harry. "Let me see what sort of a creature this is, whom he presumes to call by Miss Woodburn's pet name." He turned the locket and the starlight danced on

the sweet face of Miss Woodburn herself.

CHAPTER XI.

THE ONE SHALL BE TAKEN, AND THE OTHER LEFT."

HARRY NORTON staggered back to the beacon, and flung himself on the rocks by its side.

Addy had refused him her likeness, and she had given one to George! This blow crushed all his hope. He now remembered a hundred and one little acts of preference for George; how, lately, she would never hear him run down; how they had read (for him, Harry) stupid books together, and had spent whole hours at the coal mines talking mechanics. How on earth was any one to think that a girl like Addy Woodburn could be won by such a man, in such a way? It was unnatural-horrible, but it was. As a struggling man, George dared not pursue the advantage he had gained, and now, with an assured future, and what would certainly be a fortune to a clergyman's daughter, he would go and win her. The shipwreck, the long weary days spent on the rocks, the almost impossibility of reaching England, passed out of Harry's mind. He only thought of his wrongs, his humiliation, and the treachery-the infernal treachery of his brother!

He was aroused from such meditation by a voice from below, which shouted "Holloa! is there any one there?" He looked down and saw a boat with three men in her. He looked seaward and saw a brig hove to, about half a mile off.

"Yes-yes!" he cried, half-choked by the sudden joy.

"Who are you, and how do you come there?" cried the voice.

"I was a passenger on board the schooner Ida, which was wrecked