“Uncle,” said the young officer, with a cry of delight, “what a meeting!” The old man looked up, “Rash and impetuous boy,” said he, with a voice trembling with joy and astonishment, “you have not lost all sympathy yet; I have been in search of you, but little did I expect such a meeting. Poor Mary, oh, that she had remained a few moments longer.” “Is Mary here?” said Fitzgerald, casting a troubled glance around the anxious crowd that had gathered around the speakers. “No,” said the old veteran, clasping his hands and lifting up his eyes streaming with tears—“She was swept out of my aged arms by the last sea, and is now in heaven.” “She is in my boat,” said Fitzgerald, “I thought that voice was Mary’s as it came from the deep, but come let us haste, the wreck may go down with us while we stand here.” “Are you all armed in the boat?” hailed Fitzgerald, in a voice of thunder. “Aye, aye, sir,” was the gruff answer from the ones who remained in her. “Then shoot the first person who attempts to enter her without my orders,” said Fitzgerald; the pirates cocked their pistols, and sat ready to execute his commands. The two men who had boarded the wreck with him were now ordered to make ropes fast to the ends of a hammock; one rope was then thrown to the boat’s crew, while the other remained on board the wreck. The aged men and women, one by one, were now lowered by this simple contrivance to the boat; and when she was sufficiently loaded, Fitzgerald ordered one of his men on board to steer her, with orders to see that the passengers were not molested until he came on board. Seven times the life boat, filled with the passengers and crew of the Rosalie, whose captain had been washed away, made its voyage of mercy, and having cleared the wreck, the noble-hearted Fitzgerald—plunged into the waves and reached the boat in safety—this had been made necessary by the parting of the rigging that held the boat. The whole were saved, and as the life boat was run up to the davits, the wreck plunged heavily to leeward, a heavy wave rolled over her and she was seen no more. It was a bright morning at the Bahamas when the King Fisher took her departure for the Florida reef. Fitzgerald now entered his cabin for the first time since the rescue, and the thousand thanks that were showered upon him by the aged and the young—by the strong man—the gentle woman—and the lisping child almost overpowered him.