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XXI. Satisfying the Mortgage 162 XXII. Abner Hears the News 171 XXIII. Darry in the Lifeboat 179 XXIV. The Awakening 191 XXV. Conclusion 202

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DARRY, THE LIFE SAVER

"Will we ever weather this terrible storm?"

It was a half-grown lad who flung this despairing question out; the wind carried the sound of his voice off over the billows; but there came no answer.

A brigantine, battered by the tropical hurricane sweeping up from the Caribbean Sea, was staggering along like a wounded beast. Her masts had long since gone by the board, and upon the stump of the mizzen-stick a bit of canvas like a goose-wing had been spread in the useless endeavor to maintain steerageway.

All around, the sea rose and fell in mountainous waves, on which the poor wreck tossed about, as helpless as a cork.

Though the lad, lashed to some of the rigging that still clung to the temporary jury mast, strained his eyes to the utmost, he could see nothing but the waste of waves, the uplifting tops of which curled over, and were snatched away in flying spud by the furious wind.

Darry was the cabin boy of the Falcon, having sailed with Captain Harley now for several years. The old navigator had run across him in a foreign port, and under most peculiar conditions.

Hearing a boyish voice that somehow struck his fancy, raised in angry protest, followed by the crack of a whip, and much loud laughing, the skipper of the brigantine had pushed into a café in Naples.

Here he discovered a small, but sturdy lad, who had apparently been playing a violin for coppers, refusing to dance for a big brute of a sailor, an Italian, who had seized upon his beloved instrument.

When the boy had made an effort to recover the violin the bully deliberately smashed it on the back of a chair.

Then, laughing at the poor little chap's expressions of grief as he gathered up the pieces tenderly in his arms, the brutal sailor had seized upon a carter's whip, and cracking it loudly, declared that he would lay it over the boy's shoulders unless he mounted a table and danced to his whistling.

It was then that the big mariner strode in and stood between the lad and his cowardly persecutors.

When good-hearted Captain Harley heard the boy's pitiful story, and that he was a waif, having been abandoned some years before by an old man with whom he seemed to have been traveling, he offered to befriend him, and give him a chance to see something of the world as cabin boy on the good old brigantine, Falcon.

This offer the little chap had eagerly accepted, for he believed he must be of American birth, and somehow longed to set foot on that land far across the sea.

Some years had passed.

Darry knew no other home save the friendly cabin of the brigantine, and since he had no knowledge as to what his name might be, by degrees he came to assume that of his benefactor.

During these years the boy had seen much of the world, and learned many things under the guidance of the warm-hearted captain.

Of course he spent many bitter hours in vain regrets over the fact that there was so little chance of his ever learning his identity—only a slender link seemed to connect him with that mysterious past that was hidden from his sight; and this was a curious little scar upon his right arm just below the elbow.

It looked like a crescent moon, and had been there ever since he could remember.

This fact caused Darry to believe it might be the result of some accident that must have occurred while he was yet a baby.

If such were the case then some people, somewhere, would be apt to recognize this peculiar mark if they ever saw it again.

Captain Harley had always encouraged him in the belief that some happy day he would surely know the truth.

Just now, however, it really looked as though Darry need no longer allow himself to feel any anxiety on that score.

The ocean depths would offer just as easy a resting place to a nameless waif as to a crowned monarch.

When the great waves broke over the drifting vessel the rush of water must have swept him away, only that he had been wise enough to lash himself to the stump of the mizzen-mast.

During a little lull in the tempest someone joined him, also using the whipping rope-ends to secure his hold.

Darry saw by the aid of the darting lightning that it was his good friend, the captain; and with his thoughts still taken up with the peril of his situation he repeated the question that only the mocking winds had heard before:

"Will we ever weather this storm, captain?"

"I fear not, my lad," replied the master of the ship, sadly, "the poor old hulk is now only a plaything for the elements. It looks as though the Falcon had reached the end of her voyaging at last. Twenty years have I commanded her. I have a feeling that if so be she goes down I will not survive her."

The roar of the gale was such that it became necessary to shout at times, in order to make one's self heard above the elements.

"Are we near the coast?" asked the boy, anxiously; for he knew that such a thing must double their danger.

"I am afraid it is only too true, though the storm has been so prolonged that I have long ago lost my reckoning," replied the mariner.

"But you told me these coasts are patrolled by brave life savers, who always stand ready to risk everything in case a vessel is driven on the reefs?" continued the boy, trying to see a gleam of hope through the gloom.

"That is true, but alas! I am afraid even the bravest of men would find themselves helpless in such a terrific blow as this."

"But, captain, surely you have not given up all hope?" anxiously demanded Darry, trying to face the terrible prospect with a brave heart.

"I never do that, lad. But one of us may not live to reach the shore; and since it is so, I wanted to have a few last words with you, and then I must return to my duty, which is to try and steer this drifting hulk until the end comes."

He reached out his hand.

The boy eagerly clutched it, and there, as the lightning flashed, he looked into the kind face of his benefactor.

Something seemed to tell him that it was the last time he would