Spiritual things were as real to him as his own identity, and the God in whom he trusted seemed at his side as a familiar friend.

Of his mother too he could think without a tear.
He was sure that if left childless, she would be comforted and sustained and gently led along her lonely pathway.

Had he not been fulfilling her oft-repeated counsel, to fear nothing but sin?
Had he not vindicated that love of his native land, which she had taught him should be next to his allegiance to God?
She might never know his fate.

Yet she would mourn for him as for one who died in his effort to fulfil the duties of his absent father, and risked his own life to save the human freight of a ship from wreck and sure destruction.
Daylight brought but a feeble glimmer to Blair's dark prison-house, yet he welcomed it as the assurance of dawn--dawn which is ever welcome to the watcher, though it may usher in a day of double danger..