Meanwhile Lord Montressor, on board the Petrel, pursued his voyage to the West Indies. And, reader this was well—this was best! CHAPTER XXII. JULIUS LUXMORE. “The gallant’s form was middle size For feats of strength, or exercise, Shaped in proportion fair; And hazel was his eagle eye, And auburn of the darkest dye, His short curl’d beard and hair. Light was his footstep in the dance, And firm his stirrup in the lists; And oh! he had that merry glance That seldom lady’s heart resists.”—_Scott._ It is about time that we should looked up Mr. Julius Luxmore, whom we have too long left to his own “devices.” It will be recollected that after his rescue from death among the waves, the first thought that arose in the mind of that ingenious young gentleman was not the religious emotion of gratitude to Divine Providence for his almost miraculous preservation; but, on the contrary, the wicked impulse of suppressing his real name and giving a fictitious one. For this act he had, as it was afterward discovered, a very strong motive. Julius Luxmore, from his earliest youth, had been the subject of one grand passion—the love of money. How to make the largest possible fortune in the least possible time, was to him the constant subject of study. The love of money, as the love of any particular object of pursuit, is accompanied with an instinctive knowledge of the readiest road to its acquirement. As early as his twelfth year commerce suggested itself to the intelligent lad as the quickest means by which to gain wealth. Thus, when in his fourteenth year, he was left a destitute and irresponsible orphan, without a near relative in the world, and with only one decent suit of clothes, and one guinea in his pocket, he applied to his neighbor, old Captain Brande, and was engaged as cabin-boy on board the Mercury. It was on this first voyage, that he became acquainted with Barbara, the skipper’s little daughter and constant companion. Captain Brande was very kind to the fatherless and motherless lad who had sought his protection, and Barbara, to whom orphanage seemed the most appalling of all calamities, treated the boy as a dear brother. It was the old skipper’s delight, in his leisure moments, to instruct these children not only in the various branches of a common school education, but also in the science of navigation, and in the art of seamanship—and even in the long night watches he used sometimes, without too much taxing their hours of sleep, to teach them the names of the constellations and the stars.