‘I will do all things well,’ again seemed whispered in her ear, and Mabel felt assured that Willie had not died in vain. ’Twas hard at first for Robert Parkham to break the chains which bound him, but the remembrance of Willie’s touching message—‘Tell pa good-bye, good-bye forever,’ would rush to his mind whenever he essayed to take the poisonous bowl, and thus was he saved, and when the first day of a new year was ushered in, he stood with Mabel at the altar, and on his upturned brow received the baptismal waters, while the man of God broke to him the bread of life. Much that night they missed their child, and Mabel’s tears fell like rain upon the soft, chestnut curls she had severed from his head, but as she looked upon her husband, now strong again in his resorted manhood, she murmured—‘It was for this that Willie died, and I would not that it should be otherwise.’ * * * * * Fifteen years have passed away since the day when Lina Hastings breathed that almost impious prayer—‘Send upon me any evil but this,’ and upon the deep blue waters of the Pacific a noble vessel lay becalmed. Fiercely the rays of a tropical sun poured down upon her hardy crew, but they heeded it not. With anxious, frightened faces and subdued step, they trod the deck, speaking in whispers of some dreaded event. There had been mutiny on board that man-of-war—a deep-laid plot to murder the commanding officers, and now, at the sunsetting, the instigators, four in number, were to pay the penalty of their crime. Three of them were old and hardened in sin, but the fourth, the fiercest spirit of all ’twas said, was young and beautiful to look upon. In the brown curls of his waving hair there were no threads of silver, and on his brow there were no lines save those of reckless dissipation, while his beardless cheeks was round and smooth as that of a girl. Accustomed from his earliest childhood to rule, he could not brook restraint, and when it was put upon him, he had rebelled against it, stirring up strife, and leading on his comrades, who, used as they were to vice, marvelled that one so young should be so deeply depraved. * * * * * The sun was set. Darkness was upon the mighty deep, and the waves moved by the breeze which had sprung up, seemed to chant a mournful dirge for the boy who, far below, lay sleeping in a dishonored grave, if grave it can be called, where “The purple mullet and gold fish rove, Where the sea flower spreads its leaves of blue Which never are wet with the falling dew, But in bright and changeful beauty shine Far down in the depths of the glassy brine.”