Roswell Gardiner kissed the book, while he wondered much, and was dying with curiosity to know what was to follow.  This great point secured, the deacon laid aside the sacred volume, opened a drawer, and produced the two all-important charts, to which he had transferred the notes of Daggett.

“Captain Gar’ner,” resumed the deacon, spreading the chart of the antarctic sea on the bed, “you must have known me and my ways long enough to feel some surprise at finding me, at my time of life, first entering into the shipping concern.”

“If I’ve felt any surprise, deacon, it is that a man of your taste and judgment should have held aloof so long from the only employment that I think fit for a man of real energy and character.”

“Ay, this is well enough for you to say, as a seaman yourself; though you will find it hard to persuade most of those who live on shore into your own ways of thinking.”

“That is because people ashore think and act as they have been brought up to do.  Now, just look at that chart, deacon; see how much of it is water, and how little of it is land.  Minister Whittle told us, only the last Sabbath, that nothing was created without a design, and that a wise dispensation of Divine Providence was to be seen in all the works of nature.  Now, if the land was intended to take the lead of the water, would there have been so much more of the last than of the first, deacon?  That was the idea that came into my mind when I heard the minister’s words; and had not Mary—­”

“What of Mary?” demanded the deacon, perceiving that the young man paused.

“Only I was in hopes that what you had to say, deacon, might have some connection with her.”

“What I have to say is better worth hearing than fifty Marys.  As to my niece, Gar’ner, you are welcome to her, if she will have you; and why she does not is to me unaccountable.  But, you see that chart—­look at it well, and tell me if you find anything new or remarkable about it.”

“It looks like old times, deacon, and here are many places that I have visited and know.  What have we here?  Islands laid down in pencil, with the latitude and longitude in figures!  Who says there is land, thereaway, Deacon Pratt, if I may be so free as to ask the question?”

“I do—­and capital good land it is, for a sealing craft to get alongside of.  Them islands, Gar’ner, may make your fortune, as well as mine.  No matter how I know they are there—­it is enough that I do know it, and that I wish you to carry the Sea Lion to that very spot, as straight as you can go; fill her up with elephant’s oil, ivory, and skins, and bring her back again as fast as she can travel.”

“Islands in that latitude and longitude!” said Roswell Gardiner, examining the chart as closely as if it were of very fine print indeed—­“I never heard of any such land before!”

“’Tis there, notwithstanding; and like all land in distant seas that men have not often troubled, plentifully garnished with what will pay the mariner well for his visit.”