The attack made upon our hero was so sudden and so rapidly executed, that there was no opportunity for resistance. Before he well knew what had happened to him he found himself struggling in the ocean. Instinct led him to strike out. In response to his cry the plank was thrown overboard, as we know. He saw it and swam towards it. Fortunately he was an expert swimmer, and had no difficulty in reaching it.

He got upon the plank and supported himself by it. Then, for the first time, he was able to look towards the Sea Eagle. It was speeding away from him, not rapidly, for there was a light wind, but surely.

“Surely they will lower a boat for me,” thought our hero, anxiously.

He had heard Tom Patch’s shout of encouragement, and he knew Tom would not let him perish, if he could help it. He did not suspect that the captain would be inhuman enough to refuse assistance. So he gazed anxiously, but still hopefully, at the receding ship, wondering why there was such a delay in getting out the boat. But when five minutes had elapsed, and, straining his eyes in the uncertain light, he could see no preparations going forward for a rescue, the thought flashed upon him in all its horror that he was to be left to his fate. And what a fate! Thousands of miles from home, adrift on the vast ocean, with only a plank between him and destruction. Could anything be more fearful?

At present the ocean was comparatively calm. There was little breeze, and so no high waves were excited. He could float without any great difficulty in clinging to the plank. But this could not be expected to last. To-morrow the waves might sweep him from his sole refuge, and to certain destruction. Besides, he had neither food nor drink. Even were he able to cling to the plank, hunger and thirst would soon make his condition insupportable. There was still another consideration. It would not do for him to sleep. Should he lose consciousness, his hold of the plank would, of course, relax, and he would be drowned.

All these thoughts crowded upon our young hero, and, hero though we call him, a feeling of bitter despair came to him. Was this to be the end of all his glowing hopes and bright anticipations of future prosperity? Was he never to see his mother and his little sister Katy again? He felt at this terrible moment how he loved them both, and, anxious as he was for himself, with death staring him in the face, he could not help thinking how his death would affect these dear ones, and anxiously considered how they would be able to get along without him. When the property was gone, how would his mother get along?

“Oh, if I could but live for mother and Katy!” thought the poor boy. “I would work for them without a murmur. But it is horrible to die in the wild ocean so for away from home.”

He was not troubled by drowsiness, for in the tumult of his feelings he could not have composed himself to sleep under any circumstances. His mind was preternaturally active. Now he thought of his mother, now of his school-mates, and his happy school-days at the Vernon High School, of the many good times he had enjoyed hunting for nuts, or picking berries, or playing ball with the boys. Then he thought of Squire Turner, and wondered how he would feel when he heard of his death. Would he be glad that there was no more chance of his being exposed as the incendiary of his own building? Harry hardly knew what to think. It never occurred to him to suspect that Squire Turner was responsible for his abduction and for his present condition.

So the night wore slowly away. When the first gray streaks of dawn broke upon the ocean, the Sea Eagle was more than fifty miles away. Harry was still wakeful. His intense mental action had kept sleep at a distance.

As soon as the light had increased a little he began to look about anxiously in every direction. There was one chance of life, and he clung to that. He might be seen from some approaching vessel and picked up. This chance was small enough. The avenues of the ocean are so many and so broad, that no ship can be depended upon to keep the course of another. What chance was there, in the brief time Harry could hope to hold out, that any vessel would come near enough for him to be seen and rescued?

But it is said that drowning men will cling to a straw, and Harry was in immediate danger of drowning. His thoughts were fixed in all their intensity upon the remote contingency of a vessel’s passing. He almost forgot that he was hungry. But, as the morning advanced, the craving for food made itself unpleasantly felt. There was a gnawing at his stomach (for he had eaten but lightly the evening before), which there was no chance of appeasing. Harry knew well that this feeling would grow stronger and stronger, until it became so agonizing as to make life a burden. But there was always one relief, though a desperate one. He could release his hold of the plank, and sink down into the deep waves, which, merciless as they were, were more merciful than hunger and thirst, for while the first brings protracted agony, the last affords a speedy relief for all trouble.

After a while, thirst as well as hunger began to torment him. The salt meat, which affords the staple of a sailor’s diet, induces thirst more rapidly than ordinary food. So by noon his throat was parched with thirst. He felt the tantalizing character of his situation; “Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink.” He was half tempted to taste of the water in which he was immersed; but he knew that, so far from affording relief, it would only entail additional suffering, and, strong though the temptation was, he had the prudence and self-denial to forbear.

Then, besides, partly owing to his sleeplessness, his head began to throb with pain, and, altogether, the poor boy’s situation was becoming desperate. It seemed as if his career was likely to terminate very speedily.

While our hero is in this precarious condition, we must, for a brief time, change the scene.

Sailing steadily towards him, though he knew it not, was the Australian packet-ship Rubicon, bound from Liverpool to Melbourne.

It was a pleasant day, and most of the passengers were on deck, enjoying the calm weather. Some had been sea-sick; but even those who were most inclined to be disturbed by this most disagreeable of maladies, could find no good cause for keeping below on so pleasant a day. The sea was tranquil, the movement of the vessel calm and steady, and as such days are not often to be reckoned upon, the passengers determined to make the most of this.

Among the passengers were David Lindsay, a gentleman of middle age, and his daughter Maud, a bright, handsome girl of thirteen. Mr. Lindsay was a London merchant, who, partly for the benefit of his health, which had been affected by too great devotion to business, partly because he had business interests in Australia, had decided to go out to Melbourne on a visit. He had not at first proposed to take his daughter, considering her too young; but she was an only child, and, as her mother was dead, had been treated by her father more as a companion than is usual with girls of her age. So, when her father mentioned his plan, Maud at once said confidently, “Oh, that will be charming, papa! How much I shall enjoy it!”

“How much you will enjoy it,” repeated her father. “Well, Maud, I can’t say that your remark is particularly complimentary to me.”

“Why not?” asked Maud, innocently.

“I tell you that I am going to Australia,—a journey likely to keep me away from home a year at least, and you are so ready to part with me that you say at once that it is charming.”

“But, papa,” said Maud, “we shall not be separated at all.”

“How do you make that out?”

“Of course you are going to take me with you!” and Maud put a strong emphasis on the first two words.

“You seem to be pretty confident, considering that such an idea never entered my head,” said her father.

“What, papa! You don’t mean to say that you thought of leaving me here in England?”

“Certainly, my child.”

“But you know, papa, I can’t stay away from you so long. I’m sure you’re going to take me with you.” And she put her arms coaxingly around his neck.

“But what is to become of your education in the mean time, Maud?”

“Oh, that can wait.”

“You dispose of that difficulty very easily,” said her father, amused.

“Why, you see, papa, I am not so terribly old I’ve got plenty of time before me, so that I can spare a year well enough. Besides, I shall be learning something from observation. My governess says that there are two great sources of instruction: one of these is the study of books; and the other, and perhaps the more valuable of the two, is the right use of the faculty of observation.”

In saying this she imitated the prim, methodical tone of her governess, an elderly spinster, at whose little peculiarities Mr. Lindsay had often been secretly amused.

He laughed outright at the excellent imitation given of Miss Pendleton’s manner, and Maud saw that her suit was half won.

“You ought to be a lawyer, Maud,” he said, “you are so good at special pleading.”

“That means that I am going, I suppose, papa?” said Maud, promptly.

“Not so fast. I have got to think it over. I must ask Miss Pendleton what she thinks of it.”

“If you do, papa, will you be kind enough to repeat that remark I made about the two sources of knowledge?”

“No, Maud, I don’t think I shall venture upon such a thing. However, I will take your request into consideration.”

“Into a favorable consideration, papa.”

“As to that, I cannot promise.”

Maud, however, felt tolerably assured that she had gained her point, as indeed she had. Mr. Lindsay had been dreading his Australian trip mainly because it would separate him from his daughter. Now he began to look forward to it with interest and pleasure. Strange to say, the thought of taking his daughter had never before occurred to him. Yet there seemed no good reason for not doing it. She was young, and there was plenty of time to obtain an education, as she had herself said. Besides, the remark of her governess had considerable truth in it. Observation would be a valuable source of information.

He consulted Miss Pendleton, offering her a year’s vacation on half salary, and found her very ready to accept it. It was many years that she had been teaching in different families, and the prospect of a year’s respite, with such pecuniary inducements as would relieve her from loss or anxiety, was a pleasant one. It would enable her to visit the family of a married sister, and renew the familiar intercourse which her mode of life for many years had rendered impracticable.

So it happened that when the packet Rubicon sailed, in the list of passengers were Mr. David Lindsay and daughter.

Mr. Lindsay was sea-sick a fortnight, Maud scarcely at all. The dismal hours in which he was a victim to this disagreeable complaint were made much less intolerable by the services and bright, cheerful companionship of his daughter, so that the merchant more than once felt thankful that he had yielded to her entreaties, and made her the companion of his trip.

Maud and her father were standing by the side of the vessel, looking out at the broad waste of waters, without any definite object in view. Suddenly Maud exclaimed, “Papa, look there, and tell me what you see!”

She pointed to the east. He shook his head. “Your eyes are better than mine, Maud,” he said. “I can see nothing.”

“Papa,” she said, energetically, “I am sure I can see a boy in the water supported by a plank.”

The captain was on deck with his spy-glass. Mr. Lindsay went up to him and told him what Maud had said. He turned his glass in the direction indicated.

“The young lady is right,” he said. “It is a boy adrift upon a plank.”