Deacon Pratt was in his porch ere Roswell Gardiner overtook him. There the deacon gave his young friend to understand he had private business of moment, and led the way at once into his own apartment, which served the purposes of office, bed-room and closet; the good man being accustomed to put up his petition to the throne of Mercy there, as well as transact all his temporal affairs. Shutting the door, and turning the key, not a little to Roswell's surprise, the old man faced his companion with a most earnest and solemn look, telling him at once that he was now about to open his mind to him in a matter of the last concern. The young sailor scarce knew what to think of it all; but he hoped that Mary was, in some way, connected with the result. "In the first place, captain Gar'ner," continued the deacon, "I must ask you to take an oath." "An oath, deacon!--This is quite new for the sealing business--as ceremonious as Uncle Sam's people." "Yes, sir, an oath; and an oath that must be most religiously kept, and on this bible. Without the oath, our whole connection must fall through, captain Gar'ner." "Rather than that should happen, deacon, I will cheerfully take two oaths; one to clench the other." "It is well. I ask you, Roswell Gar'ner, to swear on this Holy Book that the secrets I shall now reveal to you shall not be told to any other, except in a manner prescribed by myself; that in no other man's employment will you profit by them and that you will in all things connected with them be true and faithful to your engagements to me and to my interests--so help you God!" Roswell Gardiner kissed the book, while he wondered much, and was dying with curiosity to know what was to follow. This great point secured, the deacon laid aside the sacred volume, opened a drawer, and produced the two all-important charts, to which he had transferred the notes of Daggett. "Captain Gar'ner," resumed the deacon, spreading the chart of the antarctic sea on the bed, "you must have known me and my ways long enough to feel some surprise at finding me, at my time of life, first entering into the shipping concern." "If I've felt any surprise, deacon, it is that a man of your taste and judgment should have held aloof so long from the only employment that I think fit for a man of real energy and character." "Ay, this is well enough for you to say, as a seaman yourself; though you will find it hard to persuade most of those who live on shore into your own ways of thinking."