DICK'S PROMOTION. 89 CHAPTER IX. dick's promotion. The first feeling experienced by those on board the "Pilgrim," after wîtnessing the terrible disaster was onc of grief and horror at the fearful death that had befallen the vîctîms. Captain Hull and his men had been swept away before their very eyes, and they had been powerless to assîst. Not one was saved ; the schooner had reached the spot too late to offer the least résistance to the attacks of the formidable sea-monster. When Dick and the negroes returned to the shîp after theîr hopeiess search, with only the corroboration of their sad foreboding that captain and crew had disappeared for ever, Mrs. Weldon sank upon her knees ; little Jack knelt beside her crying bitterly ; and Dick, old Nan, and ail the negroes stood reverently around her whilst with great devoutness the lady offered up the prayer of commendation for the soûls of the departing. Ail sympathized heartily with her supplications, nor was there any diminution of theîr fervour when she proceeded to implore that the sur- vivors might hâve strength and courage for their own hour of necd. The situation was îndeed very grave. Hère was the " Piigrim " in the middle of the Pacific, hundreds of miles away from the nearest iand, without captain, without crew, at the mercy of the wind and waves. It was a strange fatality that had brought the whale across their path ; it was a fatality stranger still that had induced her captain, a man of no ordinary prudence, to risk even his life for the
