Mary did as requested, when she proceeded to read aloud the rest of the communication.

“I have been much at a loss how to act in regard to Captain Daggett,” said Roswell, in his letter.  “He stood by me so manfully and generously off Cape Hatteras, that I did not like to part company in the night, or in a squall, which would have seemed ungrateful, as well as wearing a sort of runaway look.  I am afraid he has some knowledge of the existence of our islands, though I doubt whether he has their latitude and longitude exactly.  Something there is of this nature on board the other schooner, her people often dropping hints to my officers and men, when they have been gamming.  I have sometimes fancied Daggett sticks so close to us, that he may get the advantage of our reckoning to help him to what he wants to find.  He is no great navigator anywhere, running more by signs and currents, in my judgment, than by the use of his instruments.  Still, he could find his way to any part of the world.”

“Stop there, Mary; stop a little, and let me have time to consider.  Isn’t it awful, child?”

The niece changed colour, and seemed really frightened, so catching was the deacon’s distress, though she scarce knew what was the matter.

“What is awful, uncle?” at length she asked, anxious to know the worst.

“This covetousness in them Vineyarders!  I consider it both awful and wicked.  I must get the Rev. Mr. Whittle to preach against the sin of covetousness; it does gain so much ground in Ameriky!  The whole church should lift its voice against it, or it will shortly lift its voice against the church.  To think of them Daggetts’ fitting out a schooner to follow my craft about the ’arth in this unheard-of manner; just as if she was a pilot-boat, and young Gar’ner a pilot!  I do hope the fellows will make a wrack of it, among the ice of the antarctic seas!  That would be a fit punishment for their impudence and covetousness.”

“I suppose, sir, they think that they have the same right to sail on the ocean that others have.  Seals and whales are the gifts of God, and one person has no more right to them than another.”

“You forget, Mary, that one man may have a secret that another doesn’t know.  In that case he ought not to go prying about like an old woman in a village neighbourhood.  Read on, child, read on, and let me know the worst at once.”

“I shall sail to-morrow, having finished all my business here, and hope to be off Cape Horn in twenty days, if not sooner.  In what manner I am to get rid of Daggett, I do not yet know.  He outsails me a little on all tacks, unless it be in very heavy weather, when I have a trifling advantage over him.  It will be in my power to quit him any dark night; but if I let him go ahead, and he should really have any right notions about the position of the islands, he might get there first, and make havoc among the seals.”

“Awful, awful!” interrupted the deacon, again; “that would be the worst of all!  I won’t allow it; I forbid it—­it shall not be.”