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“Mark Merrill, the man from Maine.”

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Leaving Mark Merrill facing the crowd of midshipmen who met him as he landed, I will ask my reader to return with me until I explain the fact of his arrival as helmsman of a schooner yacht, and his appointment to a cadetship in the naval school.

It will be remembered that he had saved the yacht, by a strange coincidence bearing the name of Midshipman, and this every one on board realized.

He had driven her through a dangerous channel, with reefs on every hand, in the darkness and storm, standing coolly at his post and issuing his orders in a voice that was firm and commanding, until he had brought her into a basin as quiet as a mill pond, and said:

“Let go the anchor!”

The storm still raged outside, the waves thundered against the rocky shore, and the winds howled among the pines that crowned the hilltops.

But the yacht rocked gently upon the swell that was driven in through the narrow channel; there was plenty of water beneath her keel, and though lofty, vine-clad cliffs were above them upon all sides, the crew knew that their vessel was safe.