THE SIGNAL DISCOVERED.

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"I was struck by a sudden stupor; a mist swam before my eyes; and so completely had terror paralyzed my energies, I could scarcely raise my gun. It would have been all over with me, but that my brave eagle, comprehending my danger, dashed boldly at the tiger's head, checked its leap, and began to dig at its eyes with persistent ardour.

"The succour saved me. It gave me time to discharge a gun into my enemy's flanks, and two pistol-shots fired straight into its open mouth brought it to the ground. But, alas! my victory was

clouded by a most fatal catastrophe. My poor eagle fell at the same moment as its vanquished foe, torn to pieces by the tiger's formidable claws. I picked it up, weeping, and carried it to my cajack, that I might afterwards embalm it, and place it in our

museum.

"With sorrowful emotion I quitted this fatal spot; but God's visible providence in rescuing me from a peril whose full extent I could scarcely calculate, diverted my gloomy thoughts, and the warm glow of hope gradually returned. I doubled a small headland; and lo, from the summit of some gray and rugged rocks which lined the shore, I perceived a light whirling column of smoke ascending towards heaven!

"At the sight my heart beat quickly with a lively emotion of joy. All my anticipations were realized. Yonder was the Smok

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THE LOST ONE FOUND.

ing Rock, and I was about to taste the happiness of saving a fellow-creature.

"Immediately I turned my boat in the direction of the longdesired signal, which at last was revealed to my straining gaze. After carefully threading my way through a labyrinth of rocks, I contrived to make the shore, and reached in safety a kind of elevated platform, where I perceived a human being. It was the first strange face on which my eyes had looked for ten long years. You will remember, I doubt not, your feelings three days ago, when introduced to a new companion of misfortune: such were my feelings on this memorable occasion.

"At the noise I made in approaching, the individual, who was engaged in feeding a large fire, arose, perceived me, uttered a cry of joy and surprise; then, joining her hands, she waited, with eyes fixed upon the heavens, until I addressed her: for though she was attired in the dress of a naval officer, her exclamation and the delicacy of her features convinced me she was a woman. I halted, therefore, at about ten yards from her, and recalling to my memory all I knew of English, I said, in a voice choked with emotion,

"I am the liberator sent to you by God: I have received the albatross's message.'

Probably I pronounced these words very badly, for at first Miss Jenny did not understand them. I repeated them, and in a few minutes we comprehended each other sufficiently well to exchange a number of questions and replies. Where words failed us, we supplied the deficiency by gesture, look, and tone.

"I spoke to our new sister of the château of Tent-Town, the bay of Falcon's Nest, our shipwreck, our ten years' life upon the island, where we had introduced a semi-European civilization; and she, on the other hand, related to me the story of her early years, the catastrophe which had thrown her on a desolate shore, and her existence in the region of the Smoking Rock. And the incidents she narrated will, I assure you, furnish my father with some interesting pages for his journal in the forthcoming winter.

"Thus we became, all at once, brother and sister community of misfortune supplied the place of the ties of blood.

FREDERICK'S STORY CONCLUDED.

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"Miss Jenny gracefully invited me to supper; after which we retired for the night-I to my cajack moored upon the beach, and she to a resting-place which, from fear of wild animals, she had contrived among the branches of a tree.

"Next morning we accosted each other smiling. Miss Jenny had already prepared our breakfast, which consisted of fruits and broiled fish.

"As soon as our repast was at an end, I persuaded Miss Jenny to take a seat in my cajack, in the fore part of which I had placed all the curious objects the industrious young maiden had manufactured with her own hands.

"We set out; but an accident having occurred to my tiny barque, we were obliged to put in at the island you have named Felicity Isle. There I left Miss Jenny, who, before she would present herself to a strange family in male attire, insisted on my obtaining my father's permission.

"I yielded to her scruples, and, having repaired my canoe, made for our usual quarters. It was then I fell in with you; and, mistaking you for piratical savages, enacted the little comedy which caused you a few minutes' uneasiness."

Capital! capital!" shouted Rudly, when Frederick had concluded his narrative. "But we have now to hear our sister's history."

Frederick was about to begin the tale, to which he had already referred as of peculiar interest, when I checked him, and advised he should first take a little repose.

For his exciting narrative had carried us much further into the night than any one of us could have believed. On looking at my watch, I found it was already past midnight. It is true, every auditor was "wide awake;" but as we should be called upon to execute on the morrow some laborious tasks, which we could not satisfactorily perform after a night spent in listening to such interesting adventures, I thought it advisable to adjourn to another occasion the conclusion so much desired by all. My decision was not very well received; but when my young family were once convinced it was final, they conformed to it, and in a few minutes

668

MISS JENNY'S HISTORY.

every one had retired to his resting-place for the night-some on board the pinnace, and others on the shore.

Next day, when all the family had reassembled at breakfast, our conversation turned on the dangers Frederick had incurred in his heroic enterprise, and the courage he had displayed under circumstances of peculiar difficulty. Hence we were naturally led to speak of the promised narrative of Miss Jenny's adventures; and I was obliged to consent to its being told as a kind of prologue to the day's occupations. We would fain have listened to it from Miss Jenny's own lips; but she was so timid, and at the same time so impetuous, that it was difficult to keep her attention chained to any one subject beyond a few moments. She went and came like a butterfly; now attending to the fire or discharging some domestic duty, and now bestowing a caress on her adopted mother or playing one of her brothers an amusing trick. Frederick was therefore invited to act as her chronicler, and he commenced as follows:

MISS JENNY'S NARRATIVE.

s soon as I had contrived to understand my new sister, I asked her by what series of strange events she had been transported to the desert coast where 1 had discovered her.

"She informed me that she was born in India, but of English parents. Her father, after having served for some years as major in a British regiment,

had obtained the command of an important post in the possessions of Great Britain.

"Governor Montrose (for such was the name of Jenny's father) had had the misfortune to lose his wife a few years after his mar riage. This loss had deeply afflicted him, and all his affections had necessarily centred in his only child. Miss Jenny was only seven years old when her mother died. The governor himself undertook the education of his daughter, and in the leisure occa

HER HOMEWARD VOYAGE.

669

sionally left him by the duties of his office, he applied himself to the development in his beloved daughter of the precious qualities with which Nature had endowed her. Not content with enriching her mind with all the knowledge British civilization had naturalized in India; not content with fitting his daughter to shine in the drawing-room, and to become an ornament of the world of fashion, he wished also to make her a strong and robust woman, capable of facing and conquering a danger. Such was Miss Jenny's education up to the age of seventeen; she could handle a gun as well as a needle; she was as thoroughly at home on horseback, galloping over the plains, as in her father's reception-rooms, where her graceful address and elegant manners must, I am sure, have been the theme of universal admiration.

Governor Montrose, having been promoted to a coloneley, received orders to return to England with a battalion of his regiment. This circumstance forced him to separate from his daughter, as the rules of discipline did not allow of women on board a ship of the line in time of war; he dispatched her for England, however, almost at the same time as himself, on board another vessel, whose captain was one of his friends, and which would be making the voyage without stopping at any intermediate ports.

"The veteran wept much at parting from his beloved child; he imagined all the dangers of a long and painful voyage; and it was not until he had eagerly recommended Jenny to the watchful care of his friend the captain, that he could resolve upon abandoning to the waves of ocean all that he held dearest in the world.

"The early days of her voyage were most happy; but a terrible tempest then arose, which drove the ship far out of her course, and, after much peril and suffering, flung her upon the reefs which bristle round this very island. It was with great difficulty the crew contrived to get two boats afloat. In the smaller of the two was placed Miss Jenny; the captain took the command of the other. Both were overloaded, and their gunwales were on a level with the waves. A fresh outbreak of the violent hurricane separated them. Miss Jenny lost sight of the shallop which carried