There was a ship at anchor in the harbor of San Francisco,--a very famous clipper, one of those sailors of the sea known as Ocean Greyhounds. She was built for speed, and her record was a brilliant one; under the guidance of her daring captain, she had again and again proved herself worthy of her name. She was called the _Flying Cloud_. Her cabins were luxuriously furnished; for in those days seafarers were oftener blown about the world by the four winds of heaven than propelled by steam. Yet when the _Flying Cloud_, one January day, tripped anchor and set sail, there were but three strangers on the quarter-deck--a middle-aged gentleman in search of health, the invalid brother, in his eighteenth year, and the small, sad boy. [Illustration: West from Black Point, 1856] The captain's wife, a lady of Salem who had followed him from sea to sea for many a year, was the joy and salvation of that forlorn little company. How forlorn it was only the survivor knows, and he knows well enough. Forty years have scarcely dimmed the memory of it. Through all the wear and tear of time the remembrance of that voyage has at intervals haunted him: the length of it, the weariness of it, and the almost unbroken monotony stretching through the ninety odd days that dawned and darkened between San Francisco and New York; the solitary sail that was blown on and on, and becalmed and buffeted between the blue waste of waters and the blue waste of sky; the lonesomeness of it all--no land, no lights flashing across the sea in glad assurance; no passing ships to hail us with faint-voiced "Ahoy!"--only the ever-tossing waves, the trailing sea-gardens, the tireless birds of the air and the monsters of the deep. Ah, well-a-day! There was a solemn and hushed circle listening to family prayers that morning,--the morning of the 4th of January. The father's voice trembled as he opened the Bible and read from that beautiful psalm: "They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters, these see the works of the Lord and His wonders in the deep. For He commandeth and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount up to the heaven; they go down again to the depths; their soul is melted because of trouble. They reel to and fro and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit's end. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and He bringeth them out of their distresses. He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad because they be quiet; so He bringeth them unto their desired haven. Oh, that men would praise the Lord for His goodness and for His wonderful works to the children of men!"