draw near it.”

When in a short time the corvette was off the Bard or Beard of Brassay, as the ragged-looking southern end of that island is called, a turn of the helm to starboard sent the vessel into the Sound, and up she flew with smooth green heights on either side, here and there a few white buildings showing, and numerous rocks visible, till the pilot warned the captain that it was time to shorten sail. At a word the sailors were seen swarming aloft; studding-sails came in as if by magic, royals and top-gallant sails were handed, topsails clewed up, and with her taunt tapering masts and square yards alone, surrounded by the intricate tracery of their rigging, the beautiful fabric glided up to an anchorage off the town of Lerwick.

“Friend, you brought the ship to an anchor in true seamanlike style,” said Captain Don Hernan, touching the young pilot on the shoulder. “You have not been a simple pilot all your life.”

“No, indeed, captain,” answered the pilot, “I have been afloat since my earliest days in southern seas, as well as engaged in the Greenland fishery. Lately I have been mate of a whaler, and maybe my next voyage I shall have charge of a ship as master. You have hit the right nail on the head—this is the first summer that I ever spent on shore.”

“Can I trust you, then, to take charge of the ship round the coast?” asked the captain. “Perhaps, however, you are not well acquainted with that?”

The pilot smiled. “There is not a point or headland, a rock, or shoal, or island, which I have not as clearly mapped down in my memory, as are the hues on yonder chart, and more correctly, too, I doubt not.”

“That will do—I will trust you,” said Don Hernan. “What is your name, friend, that I may send for you when you are wanted?”

“Rolf Morton,” was the answer; “but my home is some way to the northward, on the island of Whalsey. There you have it on your chart. Those who live on it boast that it is the finest of the outlying islands; and well I know that such a castle as we have is not to be found in all Shetland.”

“Ah, it is your native place,” observed the captain. “You therefore think so highly of it.”

“Not exactly, though I remember no other spot of earth before I put eyes on Whalsey. I was, so I have been told, picked up, when a child, from a wreck at sea; and the men I was with called me Rolf Morton, the name which has 

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