It would require too much space to relate the tame incidents of Louis’s stay on the sandbank. All day long he watched and waited to see a steamer approach the desolate locality, but none came. Several small craft came within a mile or two of the shore, but nothing that looked like the Guardian-Mother. He and Baldy slept another night in the forecastle of the wreck. Again his slumbers were deep and profound, and the cook called him at daylight. He hastened to the sand-hill which afforded him the best view of the ocean. No steamer was in sight; breakfast and dinner were served, but the scanty stock of eatables was very nearly exhausted. Baldy was blessed with a tremendous appetite, and he had done double his share in reducing the supply. For his sake rather than his own Louis put himself on short allowance, in spite of his companion’s protest. By dinner-time he was quite hungry; but he ate next to nothing, for the shipbread was all gone, and the ham was hardly eatable. He was a hungry millionaire by four in the afternoon, his stomach being badly pinched by the want of food. Baldy reasoned with him, and wished him to eat all that was left at noon; but he could beat the cook in an argument every time, and compelled him to finish the provisions. At four o’clock in the afternoon Louis was sound asleep on the sand-hill, where he had laid down, actually suffering from the pain of an empty stomach. The change of position relieved, him, and, worn out with watching and anxiety, as well as by the loss of his usual meals, kind Nature had come to his aid in the form of sleep. “Wake up, if you please, Mr. Belgrave; which there is a steamer headed this way, and it may be the Guardian-Mother, sir,” said Baldy, taking him by the hand. Louis sprang to his feet as quickly as his feeble condition would permit. The words of the cook made him forget that he was hungry. He did not believe that he was starving, though he had not eaten a “square meal” since the last one he had taken on board of the Blanche. The news which Baldy had given him was quite sufficient to make a new being of him. From the sand-hill he saw a steamer feeling her way with the lead towards the shore. She was not half a mile distant, and she was a magnificent craft. Within a quarter of a mile of the shore she stopped her screw. A boat was lowered into the water, and pulled for the inlet with eight men at the oars, and an officer in the stern sheets. Louis had fixed the signal on the sand-hill, and it had been seen. CHAPTER XXXI THE MAGNIFICENT STEAMER Louis Belgrave watched the boat, which was an elegant affair, as it approached the shore. When it had accomplished half the distance, the officer in the stern sheets took off his cap, and waved it vigorously in the air. Then the abandoned millionaire recognized the stalwart form of Captain Ringgold, and he returned the salute as earnestly as the other made it.