undergo awakened my conscience. My last exercise of the duties of
my profession associated me with an expedition to the Polar Seas.
Our ship was crushed in the ice. Our march to the nearest regions
inhabited by humanity was a hopeless struggle of starving men,
rotten with scurvy, against the merciless forces of Nature. One
by one my comrades dropped and died. Out of twenty men there were
three left with a last flicker in them of the vital flame when
the party of rescue found us. One of the three died on the
homeward journey. One lived to reach his native place, and to
sink to rest with his wife and children round his bed. The last
man left, out of that band of martyrs to a hopeless cause, lives
to be worthier of God's mercy--and tries to make God's creatures
better and happier in this world, and worthier of the world that
is to come."

Randal's generous nature felt the appeal that had been made to
it. "Will you let me take your hand, Captain?" he said.

They clasped hands in silence.

Captain Bennydeck was the first to speak again. That modest
distrust of himself, which a man essentially noble and brave is
generally the readiest of men to feel, seemed to be troubling him
once more--just as it had troubled him when he first found
himself in Randal's presence.

"I hope you won't think me vain," he resumed; "I seldom say so
much about myself as I have said to you."

"I only wish you would say more," Randal rejoined. "Can't you put