LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume I, Issue 91, 15 September 1874, Page 3

LITERATURE.

ACROSS THE SANDS. Chapter 11. Concluded. ' Good-bye, dear—dear husband—my only love !' she murmured gently ; but just then there broke forth a loud, hoarse shout, 1 Ahoy, there, ahoy !'—and there was the gleam of a lantern that shewed the coble close at hand, the spray breaking over her in showers, as a couple of hardy boatmen beat forward over the bow, ready to throw the saving rope. The rescuers had arrived only just in time, however, for their aid to be efficacious, since even Darrell's strength was fairly spent when he and Margaret were dragged on board the coble. Half an hour later, and they were safe indeed, safe at home under the shelter of the cottage roof ; and as Aline clung to her sister, weeping tears of joy, there was not one of them who did not give humble thanks to the Providence that had preserved them from the jaws of death. Frank Darrell's tale was bricily told, and the reason of his long silence satisfactorily, given. The ship in which he was firstofficer, the Pride of the Ocean, had run aground, on the coast of China, on a reef which was not noted in the newest of the Admiralty charts, and, what was worse, in this helpless condition she was boarded by pirates, who pillaged the cargo, and murdered the captain and the greater number of the crew. From this massacre, the capricious lenity of the captors had excluded some of the ship's company, of which fortunate few Fiank was one. He had beeu for months a captive among the pirates, well fed and hard worked when matters went well with the pig-tailed sea-robbers, halfstarved and threatened with death when the gang returned empty-handed to their haunt among the islets of the coast. Then came an escape, rnder circumstances of great hardship and peril, and which was only

effected through DarreH's courage and address, to which also was due the subsequent defeat of the pirates by a Rritish naval force, and the recovery of much valuable properly belonging to European merchants. The result of all this was, that when Frank Darrell returned home, carrying with him the good-will and good word of the authorities and mercantile community at Hong-kong, as well as a comfortable sum which had been awarded as his share of the salvage, a fresh piece of good-luck awaited him. The wealthy ship-owners, Lock wood and Page, to whom the Pride of the Ocean had belonged, immediately appointed the young man to the command of a line new vessel, the Canopus, just off the stocks, and fitting for her first voyage to Shanghai, The first impulse of Frank Darrell, when his prospects thus brightened, had been to s»ek out Margaret, and claim the fulfilment of her promise, given in happier timep, while the old parsonage in which she had been born was yet her home, to be his wife. But there was a new vicar now to preach from Mr Gray's pulpit and inhabit Mr Gray's house, audit was not without much inquiry and some difficulty that the young sailor tracked Margaret and her sister to their actual place of residence, and arrived, as has been seen, but. just in time to save and shield her whom he loved from mortal harm. Little more remains to be told. Tn a pretty cottage on the shore of the Southampton Water, dwells Margaret, now Margaret Gray no longer ; and her sister Aline is still her inseparable companion ; yet Aline, too, is altered, and for the better. Prosperity, change of scene, her own unselfish joy in Margaret's wedded happiness, have worked wonders for the invalid ; and though her health is still frail, she suffers less, and her wilful, wayward moods of petulance have passed away, as by a charm, ever since that memorable night when Margaret last crossed the sands. The latter has no need to give music lessons, or to teach inapt fingers to strike the ivory keys, now, and her rich voice and her rare talent are only displayed to give pleasure to her husband and her friends. Handsomer than ever, she is still ,the same brave, true-hearted Margaret whose sorrow at the bitterness of death was for another's loss rather than for her own danger ; and of all the deserved good-fortune that has fallen to the lot of the young captain of the Canopus, there is nothing, as he well knows, to compare with the affection of the peerless wife who watches so lovingly for his return.