We had written thus far when there came a note from a surgeon, saying that if we would call in a street near the General Post Office, information of an interesting character awaited us. It concerned the loss of those of whose death there had been no advertisement--Mr. and Mrs. Clarke, with their son, a young man of twenty-one years. The mourning garments, the pale, sunken look of woe, the open photographic album, near to which were black-bordered notes, told at once of some one lost, and of tears shed, of which few had taken notice. Mr. Clarke had gone to Melbourne more than thirty years before, accompanied by his wife and two or three children. He had prospered there as a saddler, and as the years went by, he was enabled to bring up a large family in every comfort and respectability. There was born to him a son, however, who unhappily, through a diseased bone, had a useless arm. The sight of the youth’s sufferings was always painful to his parents, and so it came to pass that last year the aged people, as they were now, determined to come to England to obtain the best advice. Money was no object, and they reckoned that for about £1500 the three might come and go, and perhaps the son be cured. They came, enjoyed themselves immensely, heard preachers of whom they had often heard but never seen; went about here and there; and, best of all, under an operation performed by Sir W. Ferguson, the son’s arm was cured, and made whole as the other. Mr. Clarke would have taken back with him a brave little boy, around whose neck we saw the arm of a mother fondly thrown, as if she would thus keep the child safe. He would have made the boy’s fortune his care out in Melbourne; but the mother kept her child; and Mr. and Mrs. Clarke, and their son, rejoicing in his recovered strength, went on board the _London_, to be met on the other side of the sea, as they hoped, by their children and grandchildren. Before sailing, the father wrote a letter, the last words of which were a prayer, and it was with inexpressible comfort, in the midst of grief, that the relatives of the family reflected that the three were not unprepared to die. Week by week will reveal more and more of the preciousness of those on board to those who now mourn their loss. But the story will never be completely told. Numbers will be mourned in secret, of whom we shall know nothing until the sea gives up its dead. [Illustration] CHAPTER VI. THREE DAYS AND NIGHTS OF DANGER ON THE DEEP.