Chapter Eight.

Chapter Eight.Good Advice from a Strange Quarter—Midnight and Anxiety.The state of my mind at this moment must have been akin to that of a snake-charmed bird. I felt utterly, abjectly helpless. Had the apparition taken a knife out and proceeded to kill us, I do not think I should have lifted a hand or uttered a cry, except a frightened moan like a person in a nightmare.He stood and looked down at us long and earnestly. A strangely haggard, but not an evil face, black beard of a week’s growth perhaps, and short dark hair hardly seen for the napkin that bound his head instead of a hat or cap.We found voice at last, both at the same time. “Oh, sir,” we said, beseechingly, “do not kill us!” He started as we spoke the last two words, started as if stung, and gazed behind him with quick dramatic action, his black eyes all ablaze for the moment. So have I often since seen a hunted wolf look when at bay.The first words he spoke betrayed him to be a foreigner.“Kill!” he said, “what for I kill you? You alone? All alone?”“Yes,” we replied, “yes, sir, quite alone.”“’Tis goot. Do not fear me. Where go you to-morrow day? What you do here?”I glanced at him for a moment before I spoke, and the truth flashed across my mind. This was the terrible convict we heard the soldiers say was abroad on the moor. He was not in convict dress, and though his coat was in rags, his boots were good. We learned from him, afterwards, that he had exchanged clothes, strange though it appeared, with a scarecrow. There was some humour here, though sadly blended with deepest pathos.No, this man might rob, but he would not kill us. He was in trouble like ourselves. So we told him we were running away from school.He looked at us again, and I saw he believed us. “Angleese, I not speak much. I am Español. I am a convict. Do not fear. I have never kill one. No—no—no.”He sat down beside the candle and took out a knife and a turnip.Something told me the poor fellow was famishing. I jumped up and went to my bag, and placed bread and bacon in his hand. He ate ravenously and thanked me. Perhaps it was only fancy, but I thought I saw tears in his eyes.While he ate, much to our astonishment, a little black mouse ran down his sleeve, and sat on the back of his left hand, which he took care to keep still. The creature ate hungrily of the crumbs he gave it, and when finished, he held out his little finger, around which the mouse entwined both its little arms, while it licked it as lovingly as a dog would have done. Then, at a sign from the convict, it once more retreated.I am sure, even now, that it was his love for the gentle wee mouse that made Jill and I take to this man, and believe what he told us. Briefly, his story was this:“Many years ago, one, two, ten perhaps, I am cast away on this shore. My mate and me alone live. We trabel much. We seek for friend. No find. Then we come to big town, Cardeef, you call it. Here we find goot friend. We go seek for ship then to take us to Cadeeth. It is night. All my money in my belt. Bad men come out, kill my mate. I hear voices, footsteps. I run up to my mate. I pull out the ugly knife. I am caught there. I am taken to preeson, tried before justice—justice, ha! ha! I not kill my poor mate. All same. No one speak my language well. I not can speak Angleese den. I get angry, wild, mad. They put me away to preeson. Twenty year they say. But now I am free. They never get me more. I die first.”“And the mouse?” said Jill.“That is my preeson mate. I think ’tis the speerit of Roderigo, my friend, in dat little mouse. The warder want to kill him. Den I say, I escape or die. You may believe me. ’Tis all true. What for I tell little chaps like you lie. I have good friend at home. I will tell all dere. The Español Government will make de Angleese restitute. But dey cannot bring back Roderigo.”“Did you love Roderigo very much?”“He was best of friend. All same as brother. Yes, I love him. And you? What you do?”Then, boy-like, we told this man all our terrible tale. We expected him to be visibly affected; perhaps, convict though he was, to shrink from us.He certainly was visibly affected, but in a way we little expected. He laughed outright.“For ten long year,” he said, “I never laugh before.”The little mouse came down his sleeve again and sat on his wrist to wash his face and blink at the candle. The convict pointed to it with a forefinger and laughed again.“Even Roderigo,” he cried, “is much amoose. Ha, ha, ha! Ah, boys,” he added, almost immediately getting serious; “you have a home. Go back to dat home. Go back, I say, go back. I speak as an all unworthy friend.”“But they will hang us for piracy.”“Do not make me laugh more. It does not become rags and grief to laugh. See, I am widout money, and naked, still I laugh. Poor boys, go back!”I considered for a moment, then abruptly changed the subject.“How do you expect to get away? We saw soldiers to-day on the moor. They were talking about you, and said you could not escape.”His face grew darker and sadder.Then, with all a boy’s generous abandon, I pulled out my purse and showed him my money. Even little Roderigo—Jill afterwards declared—paused in the act of washing his ears and gazed at the glittering coins.“This is all we have,” I said.“You unwise boy! I might take all. I will not refuse de offer of kindness. See, I take two. No more. This has save my life.”He dipped a finger and thumb into the coins in my palm and took two sovereigns, and I put away the rest. He sat a long time silent after this. Then he got up, and going out, soon returned with an armful of ferns, which he placed in a corner.“I sleep now,” he said. “To-morrow day we talk.”Strange that now we felt no fear of this strange being. We slept soundly and well, and daylight was streaming into the cave when we were aroused. The convict had lightly touched me on the shoulder.He was smiling, and looked now neither so haggard nor so terrible as on the evening before.“No warm breakfus,” he said, smiling. “Soldiers have pass ’long de highway. Think you they seek for de convict to put in preeson, or de pirate boys to hang? Eh?”We both trembled. But the keen air of the hill gave us an appetite and we did not miss the tea.“Now we talk,” said the convict. “I have been think.”“And,” I said, firmly, “I have also been thinking. It may not be so bad as we thought. They may not want to hang us. But they would disgrace and laugh at us, and I am a soldier’s son. I will not go back. Would you, Jill?”“Assuredly not.”“Den what else you do?”“Go to sea before the mast.” The convict laughed again before he replied—“Boys, I speak as your friend. Do not be fools. Go to sea? What? Who take you? Though I have been long in preeson, I know all de law. At sea what can you do? No dings. No capitan will have runaways. Suppose you do hide, what you calls stowaway. Den they make you for to work—”“We don’t mind that.”“Stop till I speak. Dey bring you back to de same port. Ha, ha!”It had never struck us before in this light. Not that we intended to stow away, but little goslings that we were, we fancied we had only to make our way to a seaport and choose a ship, and that any captain would be delighted to have us without asking any questions.This convict was speaking sense, but he had already cast down our idols and banished every morsel of sentiment from our situation.I could have cried with vexation.I almost hated the poor fellow now. Why could he not have left us to go on a little longer in the flowery lane of our romance? Presently he spoke again.“You have to me been a friend. Now to you I will be a friend. I will go to your aunt.”“No, no, no.”“Stop, my friend. I will tell her what you do wish me to speak. No dings more. Shall I go?”“Tell her,” I said, “that we are well and happy. No, tell her we are wretched. No, no. Jill, what shall we tell her?”“Well,” said Jill, with his old smile, “you can’t say we’re jolly. Just say we won’t come back. That we want to get a ship to go to mother.”“No, Jill, not like that, a ship to go to sea. They will not take us without aunt’s leave—then, we must get it.”“Ah!” cried the convict, “dat is sensibeel now. You speak like one young man. I go to-night. You stay in de cave. Do not be seen. I will quickly return.”“But you will not bring Aunt Serapheema!”I felt angry at the time for speaking thus, but I could not help it. To have been dragged back now would have broken both our hearts, of this I am convinced.“No,” said the convict. “As I am a good Catholic—no.”This was enough for me. I took out once more my little writing-case, and feeling more happy and hopeful now, I wrote a long letter to auntie. It might have been but a repetition of the last, but it breathed even more emphatically than before our firm determination not to return till we had been to sea, adding that if this dream—that is the very word I used—were denied to us, we would work for our daily bread with the sweat of our brow.It may have been a foolish boyish letter, and I dare say was, but it spoke our feelings, and no letter can do more than that.This I entrusted to our friend the Spaniard, and he put it in his breast.We kept close to the cave all that day, and several times heard voices in the distance, but no one came near us.At night, as soon as the stars shone out, the convict left us, and we now felt very lonely indeed, but made the best of it, eating a hearty supper and talking till long past midnight.As I write, poor Auntie Serapheema’s diary lies before me, and as the following entry refers to Jill and me, I take the liberty of transcribing it in full.“July25, 18—. Last night, being the fourth since the disappearance of the dear foolish boys, and just as Sarah was bringing the Book, there came a knock to the hall door. Poor Mattie and I both started. Every knock makes us start now. It was only Robert, but he came to say a strange man wanted to see me on business. I made Sarah re-light the lamp in the drawing-room and retire. He stood near the mantelpiece as I entered, and bowed with almost stage politeness. I could see at once he was a foreigner. Englishmen are not urbane. He was clean shaved with the exception of the moustache, which was long and tinged with grey like his hair—also long. His eyes were very dark and piercing, and he looked altogether interesting and like a man who had come through some grievous sorrow. He handed me the bill of the reward of 50 pounds for the dear lads. ‘Yes, it was I who offered it,’ I said. Speaking in broken English, he told me I must take the bills in to-morrow, and issue others saying the lads were found.Heknew where they were, and could arrange for me to meet them. ‘Where?’—‘At Bristol.’—‘No, nearer?’—‘Not a mile,’ he said. Did he want the reward then? I said this to try him. He did not speak. He appeared about to faint. I made him sit down, and caused Sarah to bring wine and a little food. While he ate he handed me a letter from my most foolish of lads. I watched him while he refreshed himself. Strange to say, a little mouse he called Roderigo came from his sleeve and sat in his hand, and he fed it. It then retired. I knew then I had a strange being to deal with, but I also felt I could trust him. But he would give me none of his own history; yet if he had asked me then for the whole of the money I would have handed it over. He only asked for twenty pounds to carry out his plans on the morrow. Yes, in answer to his question, he could sleep under my roof and welcome. Would I forgive him if he retired soon. Yes, again; he looked tired and was so polite. He said, was I the boys’ eldest sister. I am often taken to be very young. While we talked Mattie came in. I was surprised to see the child turn red and white by turns as he looked at her. Then she advanced and held out her hand. She said, ‘I am glad you have come.’ I said, ‘What do you say, child?’ Her reply was a strange one as she gazed from my face to the man’s. ‘Is that not—oh, I cannot call you to name. But I saw you—and oh, it must have been in a dream.’ She looked half in a dream now, and I was about to call Sarah, fearing she might be ill, when she smiled, and was soon after talking with the mysterious stranger as if they had long known each other. She marvelled much at the little mouse. He called it his friend, his mate, his brother, and though she laughed, she seemed to understand him.“This morning he went away, and soon returned improved in habiliment. Poor fellow, he does not look well off. Now he has gone, and to-morrow I start for Bristol. But though Mattie would fain come, I must go all alone. That is the agreement.”Here the extract ends.On the day after the Spaniard left us, nothing occurred till near evening, when we were much frightened by the sudden appearance at the cave mouth of a huge dog. We thought it was a bloodhound, and that we were to be tracked thus, or our friend the Spaniard. The dog gave one startled look and retired, and presently, on venturing to look through the bushes, we found, much to our relief, he was running behind a man on horseback.Nothing happened all that night, and next day we felt very uneasy as hour after hour went by and our new friend never returned. What could have occurred? False I felt he would not prove. But was he re-taken or dead? Oh, that would indeed have been dreadful.The time went wearily, wearily on. We never ventured out of the cave, lest we might be seen, for once again we saw soldiers pass and repass.When the evening star appeared shining bright and clear over the valley far beneath us, we felt more safe. Then the bats went wheeling past and past, and the mournful cry of the brown owl sounded drearily over the moor again.We thought we should pray for our friend. We did this, lit our candle, and read from the Book, as dear auntie always called it. While we were yet reading we heard the distant sound of wheels, and speedily put the light out lest it might betray us.We were badly frightened again when the carriage stopped down on the bridge. We ran inside the cave, for we had come out to look, but just then we heard the owl’s cry three times repeated, and this was the signal.We got our bag and ran down the brook-side, and there stood the Spaniard—for he spoke—but so changed we did not know him.We were so happy then. And we had more questions to ask than the faithful man could easily answer.

The state of my mind at this moment must have been akin to that of a snake-charmed bird. I felt utterly, abjectly helpless. Had the apparition taken a knife out and proceeded to kill us, I do not think I should have lifted a hand or uttered a cry, except a frightened moan like a person in a nightmare.

He stood and looked down at us long and earnestly. A strangely haggard, but not an evil face, black beard of a week’s growth perhaps, and short dark hair hardly seen for the napkin that bound his head instead of a hat or cap.

We found voice at last, both at the same time. “Oh, sir,” we said, beseechingly, “do not kill us!” He started as we spoke the last two words, started as if stung, and gazed behind him with quick dramatic action, his black eyes all ablaze for the moment. So have I often since seen a hunted wolf look when at bay.

The first words he spoke betrayed him to be a foreigner.

“Kill!” he said, “what for I kill you? You alone? All alone?”

“Yes,” we replied, “yes, sir, quite alone.”

“’Tis goot. Do not fear me. Where go you to-morrow day? What you do here?”

I glanced at him for a moment before I spoke, and the truth flashed across my mind. This was the terrible convict we heard the soldiers say was abroad on the moor. He was not in convict dress, and though his coat was in rags, his boots were good. We learned from him, afterwards, that he had exchanged clothes, strange though it appeared, with a scarecrow. There was some humour here, though sadly blended with deepest pathos.

No, this man might rob, but he would not kill us. He was in trouble like ourselves. So we told him we were running away from school.

He looked at us again, and I saw he believed us. “Angleese, I not speak much. I am Español. I am a convict. Do not fear. I have never kill one. No—no—no.”

He sat down beside the candle and took out a knife and a turnip.

Something told me the poor fellow was famishing. I jumped up and went to my bag, and placed bread and bacon in his hand. He ate ravenously and thanked me. Perhaps it was only fancy, but I thought I saw tears in his eyes.

While he ate, much to our astonishment, a little black mouse ran down his sleeve, and sat on the back of his left hand, which he took care to keep still. The creature ate hungrily of the crumbs he gave it, and when finished, he held out his little finger, around which the mouse entwined both its little arms, while it licked it as lovingly as a dog would have done. Then, at a sign from the convict, it once more retreated.

I am sure, even now, that it was his love for the gentle wee mouse that made Jill and I take to this man, and believe what he told us. Briefly, his story was this:

“Many years ago, one, two, ten perhaps, I am cast away on this shore. My mate and me alone live. We trabel much. We seek for friend. No find. Then we come to big town, Cardeef, you call it. Here we find goot friend. We go seek for ship then to take us to Cadeeth. It is night. All my money in my belt. Bad men come out, kill my mate. I hear voices, footsteps. I run up to my mate. I pull out the ugly knife. I am caught there. I am taken to preeson, tried before justice—justice, ha! ha! I not kill my poor mate. All same. No one speak my language well. I not can speak Angleese den. I get angry, wild, mad. They put me away to preeson. Twenty year they say. But now I am free. They never get me more. I die first.”

“And the mouse?” said Jill.

“That is my preeson mate. I think ’tis the speerit of Roderigo, my friend, in dat little mouse. The warder want to kill him. Den I say, I escape or die. You may believe me. ’Tis all true. What for I tell little chaps like you lie. I have good friend at home. I will tell all dere. The Español Government will make de Angleese restitute. But dey cannot bring back Roderigo.”

“Did you love Roderigo very much?”

“He was best of friend. All same as brother. Yes, I love him. And you? What you do?”

Then, boy-like, we told this man all our terrible tale. We expected him to be visibly affected; perhaps, convict though he was, to shrink from us.

He certainly was visibly affected, but in a way we little expected. He laughed outright.

“For ten long year,” he said, “I never laugh before.”

The little mouse came down his sleeve again and sat on his wrist to wash his face and blink at the candle. The convict pointed to it with a forefinger and laughed again.

“Even Roderigo,” he cried, “is much amoose. Ha, ha, ha! Ah, boys,” he added, almost immediately getting serious; “you have a home. Go back to dat home. Go back, I say, go back. I speak as an all unworthy friend.”

“But they will hang us for piracy.”

“Do not make me laugh more. It does not become rags and grief to laugh. See, I am widout money, and naked, still I laugh. Poor boys, go back!”

I considered for a moment, then abruptly changed the subject.

“How do you expect to get away? We saw soldiers to-day on the moor. They were talking about you, and said you could not escape.”

His face grew darker and sadder.

Then, with all a boy’s generous abandon, I pulled out my purse and showed him my money. Even little Roderigo—Jill afterwards declared—paused in the act of washing his ears and gazed at the glittering coins.

“This is all we have,” I said.

“You unwise boy! I might take all. I will not refuse de offer of kindness. See, I take two. No more. This has save my life.”

He dipped a finger and thumb into the coins in my palm and took two sovereigns, and I put away the rest. He sat a long time silent after this. Then he got up, and going out, soon returned with an armful of ferns, which he placed in a corner.

“I sleep now,” he said. “To-morrow day we talk.”

Strange that now we felt no fear of this strange being. We slept soundly and well, and daylight was streaming into the cave when we were aroused. The convict had lightly touched me on the shoulder.

He was smiling, and looked now neither so haggard nor so terrible as on the evening before.

“No warm breakfus,” he said, smiling. “Soldiers have pass ’long de highway. Think you they seek for de convict to put in preeson, or de pirate boys to hang? Eh?”

We both trembled. But the keen air of the hill gave us an appetite and we did not miss the tea.

“Now we talk,” said the convict. “I have been think.”

“And,” I said, firmly, “I have also been thinking. It may not be so bad as we thought. They may not want to hang us. But they would disgrace and laugh at us, and I am a soldier’s son. I will not go back. Would you, Jill?”

“Assuredly not.”

“Den what else you do?”

“Go to sea before the mast.” The convict laughed again before he replied—“Boys, I speak as your friend. Do not be fools. Go to sea? What? Who take you? Though I have been long in preeson, I know all de law. At sea what can you do? No dings. No capitan will have runaways. Suppose you do hide, what you calls stowaway. Den they make you for to work—”

“We don’t mind that.”

“Stop till I speak. Dey bring you back to de same port. Ha, ha!”

It had never struck us before in this light. Not that we intended to stow away, but little goslings that we were, we fancied we had only to make our way to a seaport and choose a ship, and that any captain would be delighted to have us without asking any questions.

This convict was speaking sense, but he had already cast down our idols and banished every morsel of sentiment from our situation.

I could have cried with vexation.

I almost hated the poor fellow now. Why could he not have left us to go on a little longer in the flowery lane of our romance? Presently he spoke again.

“You have to me been a friend. Now to you I will be a friend. I will go to your aunt.”

“No, no, no.”

“Stop, my friend. I will tell her what you do wish me to speak. No dings more. Shall I go?”

“Tell her,” I said, “that we are well and happy. No, tell her we are wretched. No, no. Jill, what shall we tell her?”

“Well,” said Jill, with his old smile, “you can’t say we’re jolly. Just say we won’t come back. That we want to get a ship to go to mother.”

“No, Jill, not like that, a ship to go to sea. They will not take us without aunt’s leave—then, we must get it.”

“Ah!” cried the convict, “dat is sensibeel now. You speak like one young man. I go to-night. You stay in de cave. Do not be seen. I will quickly return.”

“But you will not bring Aunt Serapheema!”

I felt angry at the time for speaking thus, but I could not help it. To have been dragged back now would have broken both our hearts, of this I am convinced.

“No,” said the convict. “As I am a good Catholic—no.”

This was enough for me. I took out once more my little writing-case, and feeling more happy and hopeful now, I wrote a long letter to auntie. It might have been but a repetition of the last, but it breathed even more emphatically than before our firm determination not to return till we had been to sea, adding that if this dream—that is the very word I used—were denied to us, we would work for our daily bread with the sweat of our brow.

It may have been a foolish boyish letter, and I dare say was, but it spoke our feelings, and no letter can do more than that.

This I entrusted to our friend the Spaniard, and he put it in his breast.

We kept close to the cave all that day, and several times heard voices in the distance, but no one came near us.

At night, as soon as the stars shone out, the convict left us, and we now felt very lonely indeed, but made the best of it, eating a hearty supper and talking till long past midnight.

As I write, poor Auntie Serapheema’s diary lies before me, and as the following entry refers to Jill and me, I take the liberty of transcribing it in full.

“July25, 18—. Last night, being the fourth since the disappearance of the dear foolish boys, and just as Sarah was bringing the Book, there came a knock to the hall door. Poor Mattie and I both started. Every knock makes us start now. It was only Robert, but he came to say a strange man wanted to see me on business. I made Sarah re-light the lamp in the drawing-room and retire. He stood near the mantelpiece as I entered, and bowed with almost stage politeness. I could see at once he was a foreigner. Englishmen are not urbane. He was clean shaved with the exception of the moustache, which was long and tinged with grey like his hair—also long. His eyes were very dark and piercing, and he looked altogether interesting and like a man who had come through some grievous sorrow. He handed me the bill of the reward of 50 pounds for the dear lads. ‘Yes, it was I who offered it,’ I said. Speaking in broken English, he told me I must take the bills in to-morrow, and issue others saying the lads were found.Heknew where they were, and could arrange for me to meet them. ‘Where?’—‘At Bristol.’—‘No, nearer?’—‘Not a mile,’ he said. Did he want the reward then? I said this to try him. He did not speak. He appeared about to faint. I made him sit down, and caused Sarah to bring wine and a little food. While he ate he handed me a letter from my most foolish of lads. I watched him while he refreshed himself. Strange to say, a little mouse he called Roderigo came from his sleeve and sat in his hand, and he fed it. It then retired. I knew then I had a strange being to deal with, but I also felt I could trust him. But he would give me none of his own history; yet if he had asked me then for the whole of the money I would have handed it over. He only asked for twenty pounds to carry out his plans on the morrow. Yes, in answer to his question, he could sleep under my roof and welcome. Would I forgive him if he retired soon. Yes, again; he looked tired and was so polite. He said, was I the boys’ eldest sister. I am often taken to be very young. While we talked Mattie came in. I was surprised to see the child turn red and white by turns as he looked at her. Then she advanced and held out her hand. She said, ‘I am glad you have come.’ I said, ‘What do you say, child?’ Her reply was a strange one as she gazed from my face to the man’s. ‘Is that not—oh, I cannot call you to name. But I saw you—and oh, it must have been in a dream.’ She looked half in a dream now, and I was about to call Sarah, fearing she might be ill, when she smiled, and was soon after talking with the mysterious stranger as if they had long known each other. She marvelled much at the little mouse. He called it his friend, his mate, his brother, and though she laughed, she seemed to understand him.“This morning he went away, and soon returned improved in habiliment. Poor fellow, he does not look well off. Now he has gone, and to-morrow I start for Bristol. But though Mattie would fain come, I must go all alone. That is the agreement.”

“July25, 18—. Last night, being the fourth since the disappearance of the dear foolish boys, and just as Sarah was bringing the Book, there came a knock to the hall door. Poor Mattie and I both started. Every knock makes us start now. It was only Robert, but he came to say a strange man wanted to see me on business. I made Sarah re-light the lamp in the drawing-room and retire. He stood near the mantelpiece as I entered, and bowed with almost stage politeness. I could see at once he was a foreigner. Englishmen are not urbane. He was clean shaved with the exception of the moustache, which was long and tinged with grey like his hair—also long. His eyes were very dark and piercing, and he looked altogether interesting and like a man who had come through some grievous sorrow. He handed me the bill of the reward of 50 pounds for the dear lads. ‘Yes, it was I who offered it,’ I said. Speaking in broken English, he told me I must take the bills in to-morrow, and issue others saying the lads were found.Heknew where they were, and could arrange for me to meet them. ‘Where?’—‘At Bristol.’—‘No, nearer?’—‘Not a mile,’ he said. Did he want the reward then? I said this to try him. He did not speak. He appeared about to faint. I made him sit down, and caused Sarah to bring wine and a little food. While he ate he handed me a letter from my most foolish of lads. I watched him while he refreshed himself. Strange to say, a little mouse he called Roderigo came from his sleeve and sat in his hand, and he fed it. It then retired. I knew then I had a strange being to deal with, but I also felt I could trust him. But he would give me none of his own history; yet if he had asked me then for the whole of the money I would have handed it over. He only asked for twenty pounds to carry out his plans on the morrow. Yes, in answer to his question, he could sleep under my roof and welcome. Would I forgive him if he retired soon. Yes, again; he looked tired and was so polite. He said, was I the boys’ eldest sister. I am often taken to be very young. While we talked Mattie came in. I was surprised to see the child turn red and white by turns as he looked at her. Then she advanced and held out her hand. She said, ‘I am glad you have come.’ I said, ‘What do you say, child?’ Her reply was a strange one as she gazed from my face to the man’s. ‘Is that not—oh, I cannot call you to name. But I saw you—and oh, it must have been in a dream.’ She looked half in a dream now, and I was about to call Sarah, fearing she might be ill, when she smiled, and was soon after talking with the mysterious stranger as if they had long known each other. She marvelled much at the little mouse. He called it his friend, his mate, his brother, and though she laughed, she seemed to understand him.

“This morning he went away, and soon returned improved in habiliment. Poor fellow, he does not look well off. Now he has gone, and to-morrow I start for Bristol. But though Mattie would fain come, I must go all alone. That is the agreement.”

Here the extract ends.

On the day after the Spaniard left us, nothing occurred till near evening, when we were much frightened by the sudden appearance at the cave mouth of a huge dog. We thought it was a bloodhound, and that we were to be tracked thus, or our friend the Spaniard. The dog gave one startled look and retired, and presently, on venturing to look through the bushes, we found, much to our relief, he was running behind a man on horseback.

Nothing happened all that night, and next day we felt very uneasy as hour after hour went by and our new friend never returned. What could have occurred? False I felt he would not prove. But was he re-taken or dead? Oh, that would indeed have been dreadful.

The time went wearily, wearily on. We never ventured out of the cave, lest we might be seen, for once again we saw soldiers pass and repass.

When the evening star appeared shining bright and clear over the valley far beneath us, we felt more safe. Then the bats went wheeling past and past, and the mournful cry of the brown owl sounded drearily over the moor again.

We thought we should pray for our friend. We did this, lit our candle, and read from the Book, as dear auntie always called it. While we were yet reading we heard the distant sound of wheels, and speedily put the light out lest it might betray us.

We were badly frightened again when the carriage stopped down on the bridge. We ran inside the cave, for we had come out to look, but just then we heard the owl’s cry three times repeated, and this was the signal.

We got our bag and ran down the brook-side, and there stood the Spaniard—for he spoke—but so changed we did not know him.

We were so happy then. And we had more questions to ask than the faithful man could easily answer.

Chapter Nine.A Midnight Drive—Arrival at Bristol—The Good Ship “Salamander”—How Tom Morley Died.My brother and I jumped up into the dog-cart, I making Jill sit in front for safety’s sake, he being the younger, and the roads being hilly in parts. Then up jumped our Jehu as I may now call our friend the Spaniard, all the more truly in that he was arrayed from chin to knee in a double breasted buff-coloured coachman’s coat with buttons of brass. The coat, when daylight came, looked a little the worse for wear, but, to use a paradox, this was all the better for the part he was playing.I had only time to press Adriano’s hand and ask for auntie and Mattie before we started. They were well and it was all right, and aunt would meet me at Bristol.I should have liked to have asked many more questions, but the noise and jolting of the cart prevented me. Besides, Adriano seemed but little inclined to talk, and I noticed that he gave frequent glances from side to side, scanning as well as he could that portion of the moor which could be seen in the starlight.Jill put his hand over the back of the seat and I placed it in my bosom, and thus felt I had my brother’s company and he mine. There was no need to speak to him then. Jill and I understood each other’s thoughts by touch as well as by talk. But indeed I was myself but in small humour for conversing. I felt safe—that was enough for the present; but why Adriano had brought a cart, or where he was driving us to, I had no desire to be informed.In about half an hour, far away on the horizon to the right, I thought I could perceive the reflection of a great fire behind the hills. The flames looked increasing every minute. Surely, I thought, some forest must be on fire away over yonder. But soon the moon rose red and round, and apparently laughing at the trick it had played me. I watched it mount higher and higher, getting paler and more silvery, fighting its way through the clouds, and changing their blackness into beauty and brightness, just as our souls may change sorrows and afflictions, if we but have true faith in the Father.Ere long, the moon ruled queen of the heavens’ blue arch, and the very stars seemed to pale before its glory.I could not help thinking as we jogged along, how very differently things had all turned out from the morning—very far away it seemed—when poor Jill and I had left the ship with, figuratively speaking, rope around our necks. So true is it that we cannot even guess from hour to hour what is before us. You may try the experiment, if you please, of imagining what some place you are going to will be like, or some person you are going to meet for the first time. Your imagination will be very far out indeed. Still, I am certain of one thing, that if we do our duty simply and well, and leave the rest in the hands of the Providence we entrust with our life-guidance, all will turn out for the best. Who could have dreamt of our meeting the “terrible” convict, or of his giving us such honest, fatherly advice. With our heads full of silly romance, and our purses brimming over with three pounds ten each, where would Jill and I have landed. We would soon have been poor little ragged, bare-footed boys, with never a penny to buy bread or a postage-stamp, and oh, I tremble now to think what we might not have come to.As I was musing thus, the road began rapidly to descend till we found ourselves in a deep, wooded ravine and on a bridge.Adriano had quick eyes. He saw two men spring from the bank a little ahead before I did, and slackened speed. One stood at each side of the road as we drove very slowly past.Adriano simply raised his whip hand as Jehus do by way of salute, but spoke no word. A moment afterwards, however, he raised his cap as if to scratch his head and the moon glinted on his grey hair—whichIknew was a wig.The men were very upright and soldierly in their bearing, but dressed in dark clothes tightly fitting.One caught the back-board of the dog-cart, and walked some little way, helping himself along up the hill by the hold he had taken, which was only natural. But my heart began to jump and flicker, and my mouth grew suddenly dry with dread. Luckily I did not lose the power of speaking, nor did I falter much.“You’re late out, my lad?”“Y-es.”“Going far?”“Y-es, very far. Going to see my poor aunt.”I had taken my handkerchief out, for what reason I do not know. But a sudden inspiration made me raise it momentarily to my face.The man noticed it.“Ah! poor boy,” he said; “I hope you’ll find her better than you expect.”“I hope so,” I said, and in my heart of hearts I did.“Death comes sooner or later to us all, lad,” he added. “Good-night.”“Good-night, sir.”Not a word was spoken by any of us in the trap, till we were a good mile past the place. Then Adriano turned round.“Who you think those men are?” he asked.“I can guess.”“They belong to the preeson. I know them. Ha, ha, they not know me.”There were no further adventures that night, but just as day was breaking slowly in the east, we all alighted near a brook, and Adriano put a nose-bag on the horse after letting him drink. Then our friend took out a basket from the cart. It contained one of auntie’s pies—auntie was famous for pies—and many other good things. I could not help thinking now how truly good at heart she was, and how ungrateful I had been. Hope returned to my heart, however, while eating, and I prayed inwardly I might live to reward her for all her kindness.We were now in a very lonely and also a very quiet place, so that when Adriano suggested a few hours’ sleep, nothing seemed more natural. He gave us a rug and we lay down together, Jill and I under a bush, and very soon indeed all our tiredness and all our troubles were alike forgotten.My watch had run down and so had Jill’s, so I have no actual notion how long we slept, only it must have been for many hours, because the sun was over in a different part of the sky and we were hungry. This last, I have often proved in deserts and wilds, is an excellent way of knowing the time when you do not happen to possess a watch.We slept that night at a little country inn, and were up and away before the sun was well over the woods. We took our time on the road to-day, lazed and dawdled in fact, while Jill and I committed all kinds of frolics. We culled huge bunches of wild flowers, and even bedecked the horse’s head, so that when we arrived in the evening at a little village the people at once put us down as boys on a holiday.Next night we drove into Bristol, and now Jill and I forgot all about the wild flowers, as we thought of our interview with auntie.I pictured to myself all sorts of dreadful and impossible situations. How would she receive us? How would we advance? How apologise for all the trouble and inconvenience we had been to her? How this, that; and fifty other things, that were all scattered to the winds when we drove into the inn yard and found auntie all smiles and ribbons, actually waiting to help us down out of the trap?“Poor dear lads, you must be so tired and hungry. But dinner is waiting when you’ve had a wash. I declare to you, boys, I’m not a bit sorry to come to Bristol. It is quite a holiday to me. And old associations do so crowd round my heart. Your grandpa, my dear father, used to sail regularly from Bristol. Oh, Reginald, you do look unkempt. Sleeping in your clothes, I dare say. Come along. We will say good-night, Señor Adriano. Be here at ten to-morrow.”And it was not till just before we went down to one of the nicest dinners ever a boy sat down to, that auntie said, “Now, boys, say not a word again about theThunderbolt. All is past and forgiven. It was not to be, boys. You were not destined for the navy.”We clung to her hands, and thanked her.“And after all,” mind you, “I believe with my dear father, that we have far better sailors in the merchant service than in the navy.”On the whole, then, our reunion was more like coming home after being away on a holiday than anything else. So different from anything we could have expected.We were too tired to talk much that night, and next morning Adriano bade us good-bye after doing some business with auntie.I felt some sorrow at parting; so did Jill.“Shall we ever, ever see each other again, Adriano?” I said.“Quien sabe? de world is not wide to de sailor. We meet—perhaps.—I go home now, I hope. I will see my government—I will return here or to Cardeef—a free man.A dios. A dios.”This was a busy day with auntie, and a busy day for us too. We saw the inside of many a shipping office before evening, and I was proud to learn that my Aunt Serapheema was so well known and so highly respected by every one, but I was not aware then that she was owner of a great many shipping shares.I remember what one white-haired old gentleman said to her.“The boys are big enough for their years, and look strong and well, but are they not just a little too young?”“Their grandfather,” said auntie, proudly, “went to sea when barely ten.”“I know your father was an exceptional youngster, and no man could have died more highly respected. No man.”“Let me see now,” said auntie, speaking more to herself than to Mr Claremont, “theSalamanderbelongs to only a few shareholders.”“Belongs mostly to you, Miss Domville.”“And the captain is a gentleman.”“Captain Coates is an excellent fellow.”“Takes his wife with him most trips?”“He does so in September.”“I love a man who does that. He is a true sailor.”“Perhaps too soft-hearted, though,” said Mr Claremont. “Don’t you think so, Miss Domville?”“No, I don’t.”“So brusque and cheerful. Just like your father, Miss. Just like dear old Captain Domville.”“And I couldn’t be like a better man, could I, Mr Claremont?”“True, true, true.”“Well, my boys shall go out in September with Captain and Mrs Coates.”“Solike her father.Solike her father. Why, Miss Domville, do you know that your words sound very like a command?”“And so they are meant to sound, Mr Claremont,” said auntie, laughing. “But mind you, it isI, not you, who are giving it. It is with me all responsibility rests, remember. I, not you, have to account to Major Jones, their dear father, and to my sister.”“Yes, Miss, yes, yes, yes. I am just your adviser.”“That’s all. So that settles it.”“Solike her father. Soverylike her father,” said the old gentleman, as he bowed us to the door.I looked at Jill after we got into the street, and Jill looked at me, and the wish uppermost in our minds at that moment was to take off our caps and shout, as we used to do when playing pirates; and the greatest sorrow in our hearts at the same moment was that we could not do anything of the sort, because it would have looked so silly.When at luncheon that afternoon, auntie told us she would remain with us until our ship sailed in September, we of course felt very glad.“But,” I said, “will they not miss you at home?”“I was thinking of Mattie.”“Oh, no,” said auntie, “who is to miss me? Poor dear Mattie has her Mummy Gray, the canaries have Sarah, and Trots has Robert to wash his feet and exercise him. You see, Reginald, I am free. I love to be free. That is the sole reason why I do not get married.”Poor auntie, it struck me even then she did not look much like a marrying lady; but I did not say anything.Captain Coates called in the evening. He was not your beau ideal of a sailor quite, being rather tall, thin, and dressed like a landsman. The peculiar feature of his face was his nose. It was a big nose, but sharp and thin. If his nose had been a circus horse, a clown would hardly have cared to ride bare-back on it. I may as well state here, at once, that Captain Coates never drank anything stronger than tea; still his nose was somewhat flushed at all times, and more so during an east wind. Mrs Coates was with him, a round-faced, cosy, bonnie wee woman that Jill and I took to at once.She was very proud of her husband, and he was fond of her.“Jack,” she told us that evening, “is every inch a sailor. Oh, it is fine to hear him carrying on when we’re shortening sail in front of a puff. And all the men obey him, too.”Captain Coates laughed aloud—rather a pleasant, hearty laugh it was.“Obey me, do they! Quite an exceptional thing on board a ship. Thunder! Miss Domville, the man who didn’t obey me would soon be scratching an ailing head.”“That’s just his way,” Mrs Coates whispered to me. “Jack is such a fellow.—Oh, by the way, you’re called Jack. We’ll have two?”“Oh, it won’t matter much,” I said, “I’ve a whole barrowful of names besides to pick and choose from.”“I’m sure you’ll like the sea and Captain Coates, and that we shall all pull together famously. By the way, Miss Domville, I’m taking a maid again.”“You had one last time.”“Yes, and a nice handful she was. Ill for weeks, and I had to attend upon her. This is a black girl, so humorous, kindly, and good, and been to sea quite a long time.”We were very happy that evening, especially when aunt told us that we were going to India, and that we should call at the Cape and probably see mamma.“Oh,” I shouted, “I’m so glad that we played pirates.”“So am I,” cried Jill, and began to dance.“Auntie,” I said, “promise me one thing. Oh, you must promise.”“Well, well, if I must promise, what is it?”“You’ll write and tell mamma we’ve gone to sea. But don’t saywhere. We want to pop in on her unawares. Don’t we, Jill?”“Certainly.”“Well,” said auntie, “I’ll humour you for once.”There is always something in this life happening to mar one’s joy, just when it is at its height. That is my experience. But things are wisely ordered. Heaven does not desire us to get too fond of this world. If it were all sunshine we would be sure to, and forget there is a happier land beyond the grave.But before we went to bed, auntie told us about the sad fate of poor Tom Morley.She seemed unwilling at first to tell us anything to damp our spirits, but as we had mentioned Tom, and saw there was something behind her first simple statement that Tom was dead, we pressed her and she withheld nothing.The brief narrative of his latter end was related to her by Tom’s own quondam shipmate, the man who had come on board for him on that unfortunate evening before our final foolish adventure on theThunderbolt; and when we heard it from auntie’s lips it made an impression on us I am never likely to forget.Boys do take fancies for persons, whether men or women, whom they get in tow with—to use a sea phrase—when young, and I think they are more likely to be lasting ones if these persons have any memorable oddity about them. Tom had several, his hoarse but not unpleasant voice, his flower-pot coloured face, and his exceeding good nature when off duty. To put it in few words, he then used to let us do as we liked. I think I see Jill yet jumping round him and singing—“Dear old Tom Morley,Come tell us a storley.”Then we would catch him and “lug him below” (the phrase is Tom’s) and seat him in his armchair, and even light his pipe for him, and then sit down to listen.Tom’s stories nearly always had much about the same plan of commencement, which was somewhat as follows:—“When I was in the oldSemiramis, young gentlemen, ah! ships were ships in them days, and officers and menwereofficers and men, I can tell you, and knowed their duty, and did it too, no matter what stood in their way. Well, one day we were a-cruisin’ off a bit o’ land,”—and so on and so forth.Yes, we did like Tom. But sad was the pity he had that predilection for “tossing cans” with friends, else he might have gone aloft in a different fashion and his body filled an honoured grave.But Tom met his old messmate that day, and went off with him, and they must have a can together for old times, and many more than one perhaps. The evening probably passed away quickly enough, what with talking of the dear old days “when ships were ships and you I were young, lad.”But, according to his friend, Tom pulled himself up with a round turn at last, and as he pulled out his big, old-fashioned silver watch.“Oh dear,” he cried, “I’d no idea how the time was flyin’; and those dear children on board, too, all by their dear little selves. Now, old chummy, I’m off. Duty’s duty, and we may meet again another day.”“I don’t think you can get off to-night to theThunderbolt,” replied his friend.“What d’ye mean?” said Tom.“Why I mean that it’s blowin’ big guns.”“No matter if it blows fifty-sixes or Armstrongs, Tom’s goin’ off if birds can fly.”“There won’t be a boat’ll take you off to-night, Tom,” said the landlord.“Then I’ll swim,” said Tom Morley, doggedly. “I’ve done that afore, when duty was duty.”“I know you has, Tom; but take my advice, don’t try any such foolish game on a night like this, or you’ll get left.”“Good-night, landlord.—Come on,” cried Tom to his friend.Away they went together.It was past ten by the time they reached the usual steps. No boatman was there.“Tom, come on back. Sleep on shore to-night, old man.”“What,” cried Tom, “and those three darlings on board! Don’t ye try to persuade me, Bill. You knows Tom o’ the old. Duty is duty, and Tom’ll face it.”The moon was shining quite brightly, and though the water was rough, the wind was favourable.“D’ye see the dear oldThunderboltyonder, Bill? Well, Tom’ll sleep there to-night or—in a sailor’s grave. I think I see the anxious wee faces at the port yonder watching for me. Coming, darlings Tom’s a-coming.”Tom had kicked off his boots as he spoke; then he relieved himself of what he called his top hamper. But even now his old shipmate could not believe him in earnest. He did, though, when Tom darted from his side and took a header into the tide.He swam up close in shore first for a good distance, then struck out across, but still heading up. For a time his messmate could even hear him singing a stave of that charming old song—“Good-night—all’s well.”“The last long notes,” said his mate, “rang down the wind like a death-knell.”And death-knell it was to poor Tom. If ever he reached the ship’s longitude, he must have been carried past her with fearful speed, and—the curtain drops.

My brother and I jumped up into the dog-cart, I making Jill sit in front for safety’s sake, he being the younger, and the roads being hilly in parts. Then up jumped our Jehu as I may now call our friend the Spaniard, all the more truly in that he was arrayed from chin to knee in a double breasted buff-coloured coachman’s coat with buttons of brass. The coat, when daylight came, looked a little the worse for wear, but, to use a paradox, this was all the better for the part he was playing.

I had only time to press Adriano’s hand and ask for auntie and Mattie before we started. They were well and it was all right, and aunt would meet me at Bristol.

I should have liked to have asked many more questions, but the noise and jolting of the cart prevented me. Besides, Adriano seemed but little inclined to talk, and I noticed that he gave frequent glances from side to side, scanning as well as he could that portion of the moor which could be seen in the starlight.

Jill put his hand over the back of the seat and I placed it in my bosom, and thus felt I had my brother’s company and he mine. There was no need to speak to him then. Jill and I understood each other’s thoughts by touch as well as by talk. But indeed I was myself but in small humour for conversing. I felt safe—that was enough for the present; but why Adriano had brought a cart, or where he was driving us to, I had no desire to be informed.

In about half an hour, far away on the horizon to the right, I thought I could perceive the reflection of a great fire behind the hills. The flames looked increasing every minute. Surely, I thought, some forest must be on fire away over yonder. But soon the moon rose red and round, and apparently laughing at the trick it had played me. I watched it mount higher and higher, getting paler and more silvery, fighting its way through the clouds, and changing their blackness into beauty and brightness, just as our souls may change sorrows and afflictions, if we but have true faith in the Father.

Ere long, the moon ruled queen of the heavens’ blue arch, and the very stars seemed to pale before its glory.

I could not help thinking as we jogged along, how very differently things had all turned out from the morning—very far away it seemed—when poor Jill and I had left the ship with, figuratively speaking, rope around our necks. So true is it that we cannot even guess from hour to hour what is before us. You may try the experiment, if you please, of imagining what some place you are going to will be like, or some person you are going to meet for the first time. Your imagination will be very far out indeed. Still, I am certain of one thing, that if we do our duty simply and well, and leave the rest in the hands of the Providence we entrust with our life-guidance, all will turn out for the best. Who could have dreamt of our meeting the “terrible” convict, or of his giving us such honest, fatherly advice. With our heads full of silly romance, and our purses brimming over with three pounds ten each, where would Jill and I have landed. We would soon have been poor little ragged, bare-footed boys, with never a penny to buy bread or a postage-stamp, and oh, I tremble now to think what we might not have come to.

As I was musing thus, the road began rapidly to descend till we found ourselves in a deep, wooded ravine and on a bridge.

Adriano had quick eyes. He saw two men spring from the bank a little ahead before I did, and slackened speed. One stood at each side of the road as we drove very slowly past.

Adriano simply raised his whip hand as Jehus do by way of salute, but spoke no word. A moment afterwards, however, he raised his cap as if to scratch his head and the moon glinted on his grey hair—whichIknew was a wig.

The men were very upright and soldierly in their bearing, but dressed in dark clothes tightly fitting.

One caught the back-board of the dog-cart, and walked some little way, helping himself along up the hill by the hold he had taken, which was only natural. But my heart began to jump and flicker, and my mouth grew suddenly dry with dread. Luckily I did not lose the power of speaking, nor did I falter much.

“You’re late out, my lad?”

“Y-es.”

“Going far?”

“Y-es, very far. Going to see my poor aunt.”

I had taken my handkerchief out, for what reason I do not know. But a sudden inspiration made me raise it momentarily to my face.

The man noticed it.

“Ah! poor boy,” he said; “I hope you’ll find her better than you expect.”

“I hope so,” I said, and in my heart of hearts I did.

“Death comes sooner or later to us all, lad,” he added. “Good-night.”

“Good-night, sir.”

Not a word was spoken by any of us in the trap, till we were a good mile past the place. Then Adriano turned round.

“Who you think those men are?” he asked.

“I can guess.”

“They belong to the preeson. I know them. Ha, ha, they not know me.”

There were no further adventures that night, but just as day was breaking slowly in the east, we all alighted near a brook, and Adriano put a nose-bag on the horse after letting him drink. Then our friend took out a basket from the cart. It contained one of auntie’s pies—auntie was famous for pies—and many other good things. I could not help thinking now how truly good at heart she was, and how ungrateful I had been. Hope returned to my heart, however, while eating, and I prayed inwardly I might live to reward her for all her kindness.

We were now in a very lonely and also a very quiet place, so that when Adriano suggested a few hours’ sleep, nothing seemed more natural. He gave us a rug and we lay down together, Jill and I under a bush, and very soon indeed all our tiredness and all our troubles were alike forgotten.

My watch had run down and so had Jill’s, so I have no actual notion how long we slept, only it must have been for many hours, because the sun was over in a different part of the sky and we were hungry. This last, I have often proved in deserts and wilds, is an excellent way of knowing the time when you do not happen to possess a watch.

We slept that night at a little country inn, and were up and away before the sun was well over the woods. We took our time on the road to-day, lazed and dawdled in fact, while Jill and I committed all kinds of frolics. We culled huge bunches of wild flowers, and even bedecked the horse’s head, so that when we arrived in the evening at a little village the people at once put us down as boys on a holiday.

Next night we drove into Bristol, and now Jill and I forgot all about the wild flowers, as we thought of our interview with auntie.

I pictured to myself all sorts of dreadful and impossible situations. How would she receive us? How would we advance? How apologise for all the trouble and inconvenience we had been to her? How this, that; and fifty other things, that were all scattered to the winds when we drove into the inn yard and found auntie all smiles and ribbons, actually waiting to help us down out of the trap?

“Poor dear lads, you must be so tired and hungry. But dinner is waiting when you’ve had a wash. I declare to you, boys, I’m not a bit sorry to come to Bristol. It is quite a holiday to me. And old associations do so crowd round my heart. Your grandpa, my dear father, used to sail regularly from Bristol. Oh, Reginald, you do look unkempt. Sleeping in your clothes, I dare say. Come along. We will say good-night, Señor Adriano. Be here at ten to-morrow.”

And it was not till just before we went down to one of the nicest dinners ever a boy sat down to, that auntie said, “Now, boys, say not a word again about theThunderbolt. All is past and forgiven. It was not to be, boys. You were not destined for the navy.”

We clung to her hands, and thanked her.

“And after all,” mind you, “I believe with my dear father, that we have far better sailors in the merchant service than in the navy.”

On the whole, then, our reunion was more like coming home after being away on a holiday than anything else. So different from anything we could have expected.

We were too tired to talk much that night, and next morning Adriano bade us good-bye after doing some business with auntie.

I felt some sorrow at parting; so did Jill.

“Shall we ever, ever see each other again, Adriano?” I said.

“Quien sabe? de world is not wide to de sailor. We meet—perhaps.—I go home now, I hope. I will see my government—I will return here or to Cardeef—a free man.A dios. A dios.”

This was a busy day with auntie, and a busy day for us too. We saw the inside of many a shipping office before evening, and I was proud to learn that my Aunt Serapheema was so well known and so highly respected by every one, but I was not aware then that she was owner of a great many shipping shares.

I remember what one white-haired old gentleman said to her.

“The boys are big enough for their years, and look strong and well, but are they not just a little too young?”

“Their grandfather,” said auntie, proudly, “went to sea when barely ten.”

“I know your father was an exceptional youngster, and no man could have died more highly respected. No man.”

“Let me see now,” said auntie, speaking more to herself than to Mr Claremont, “theSalamanderbelongs to only a few shareholders.”

“Belongs mostly to you, Miss Domville.”

“And the captain is a gentleman.”

“Captain Coates is an excellent fellow.”

“Takes his wife with him most trips?”

“He does so in September.”

“I love a man who does that. He is a true sailor.”

“Perhaps too soft-hearted, though,” said Mr Claremont. “Don’t you think so, Miss Domville?”

“No, I don’t.”

“So brusque and cheerful. Just like your father, Miss. Just like dear old Captain Domville.”

“And I couldn’t be like a better man, could I, Mr Claremont?”

“True, true, true.”

“Well, my boys shall go out in September with Captain and Mrs Coates.”

“Solike her father.Solike her father. Why, Miss Domville, do you know that your words sound very like a command?”

“And so they are meant to sound, Mr Claremont,” said auntie, laughing. “But mind you, it isI, not you, who are giving it. It is with me all responsibility rests, remember. I, not you, have to account to Major Jones, their dear father, and to my sister.”

“Yes, Miss, yes, yes, yes. I am just your adviser.”

“That’s all. So that settles it.”

“Solike her father. Soverylike her father,” said the old gentleman, as he bowed us to the door.

I looked at Jill after we got into the street, and Jill looked at me, and the wish uppermost in our minds at that moment was to take off our caps and shout, as we used to do when playing pirates; and the greatest sorrow in our hearts at the same moment was that we could not do anything of the sort, because it would have looked so silly.

When at luncheon that afternoon, auntie told us she would remain with us until our ship sailed in September, we of course felt very glad.

“But,” I said, “will they not miss you at home?”

“I was thinking of Mattie.”

“Oh, no,” said auntie, “who is to miss me? Poor dear Mattie has her Mummy Gray, the canaries have Sarah, and Trots has Robert to wash his feet and exercise him. You see, Reginald, I am free. I love to be free. That is the sole reason why I do not get married.”

Poor auntie, it struck me even then she did not look much like a marrying lady; but I did not say anything.

Captain Coates called in the evening. He was not your beau ideal of a sailor quite, being rather tall, thin, and dressed like a landsman. The peculiar feature of his face was his nose. It was a big nose, but sharp and thin. If his nose had been a circus horse, a clown would hardly have cared to ride bare-back on it. I may as well state here, at once, that Captain Coates never drank anything stronger than tea; still his nose was somewhat flushed at all times, and more so during an east wind. Mrs Coates was with him, a round-faced, cosy, bonnie wee woman that Jill and I took to at once.

She was very proud of her husband, and he was fond of her.

“Jack,” she told us that evening, “is every inch a sailor. Oh, it is fine to hear him carrying on when we’re shortening sail in front of a puff. And all the men obey him, too.”

Captain Coates laughed aloud—rather a pleasant, hearty laugh it was.

“Obey me, do they! Quite an exceptional thing on board a ship. Thunder! Miss Domville, the man who didn’t obey me would soon be scratching an ailing head.”

“That’s just his way,” Mrs Coates whispered to me. “Jack is such a fellow.—Oh, by the way, you’re called Jack. We’ll have two?”

“Oh, it won’t matter much,” I said, “I’ve a whole barrowful of names besides to pick and choose from.”

“I’m sure you’ll like the sea and Captain Coates, and that we shall all pull together famously. By the way, Miss Domville, I’m taking a maid again.”

“You had one last time.”

“Yes, and a nice handful she was. Ill for weeks, and I had to attend upon her. This is a black girl, so humorous, kindly, and good, and been to sea quite a long time.”

We were very happy that evening, especially when aunt told us that we were going to India, and that we should call at the Cape and probably see mamma.

“Oh,” I shouted, “I’m so glad that we played pirates.”

“So am I,” cried Jill, and began to dance.

“Auntie,” I said, “promise me one thing. Oh, you must promise.”

“Well, well, if I must promise, what is it?”

“You’ll write and tell mamma we’ve gone to sea. But don’t saywhere. We want to pop in on her unawares. Don’t we, Jill?”

“Certainly.”

“Well,” said auntie, “I’ll humour you for once.”

There is always something in this life happening to mar one’s joy, just when it is at its height. That is my experience. But things are wisely ordered. Heaven does not desire us to get too fond of this world. If it were all sunshine we would be sure to, and forget there is a happier land beyond the grave.

But before we went to bed, auntie told us about the sad fate of poor Tom Morley.

She seemed unwilling at first to tell us anything to damp our spirits, but as we had mentioned Tom, and saw there was something behind her first simple statement that Tom was dead, we pressed her and she withheld nothing.

The brief narrative of his latter end was related to her by Tom’s own quondam shipmate, the man who had come on board for him on that unfortunate evening before our final foolish adventure on theThunderbolt; and when we heard it from auntie’s lips it made an impression on us I am never likely to forget.

Boys do take fancies for persons, whether men or women, whom they get in tow with—to use a sea phrase—when young, and I think they are more likely to be lasting ones if these persons have any memorable oddity about them. Tom had several, his hoarse but not unpleasant voice, his flower-pot coloured face, and his exceeding good nature when off duty. To put it in few words, he then used to let us do as we liked. I think I see Jill yet jumping round him and singing—

“Dear old Tom Morley,Come tell us a storley.”

“Dear old Tom Morley,Come tell us a storley.”

Then we would catch him and “lug him below” (the phrase is Tom’s) and seat him in his armchair, and even light his pipe for him, and then sit down to listen.

Tom’s stories nearly always had much about the same plan of commencement, which was somewhat as follows:—

“When I was in the oldSemiramis, young gentlemen, ah! ships were ships in them days, and officers and menwereofficers and men, I can tell you, and knowed their duty, and did it too, no matter what stood in their way. Well, one day we were a-cruisin’ off a bit o’ land,”—and so on and so forth.

Yes, we did like Tom. But sad was the pity he had that predilection for “tossing cans” with friends, else he might have gone aloft in a different fashion and his body filled an honoured grave.

But Tom met his old messmate that day, and went off with him, and they must have a can together for old times, and many more than one perhaps. The evening probably passed away quickly enough, what with talking of the dear old days “when ships were ships and you I were young, lad.”

But, according to his friend, Tom pulled himself up with a round turn at last, and as he pulled out his big, old-fashioned silver watch.

“Oh dear,” he cried, “I’d no idea how the time was flyin’; and those dear children on board, too, all by their dear little selves. Now, old chummy, I’m off. Duty’s duty, and we may meet again another day.”

“I don’t think you can get off to-night to theThunderbolt,” replied his friend.

“What d’ye mean?” said Tom.

“Why I mean that it’s blowin’ big guns.”

“No matter if it blows fifty-sixes or Armstrongs, Tom’s goin’ off if birds can fly.”

“There won’t be a boat’ll take you off to-night, Tom,” said the landlord.

“Then I’ll swim,” said Tom Morley, doggedly. “I’ve done that afore, when duty was duty.”

“I know you has, Tom; but take my advice, don’t try any such foolish game on a night like this, or you’ll get left.”

“Good-night, landlord.—Come on,” cried Tom to his friend.

Away they went together.

It was past ten by the time they reached the usual steps. No boatman was there.

“Tom, come on back. Sleep on shore to-night, old man.”

“What,” cried Tom, “and those three darlings on board! Don’t ye try to persuade me, Bill. You knows Tom o’ the old. Duty is duty, and Tom’ll face it.”

The moon was shining quite brightly, and though the water was rough, the wind was favourable.

“D’ye see the dear oldThunderboltyonder, Bill? Well, Tom’ll sleep there to-night or—in a sailor’s grave. I think I see the anxious wee faces at the port yonder watching for me. Coming, darlings Tom’s a-coming.”

Tom had kicked off his boots as he spoke; then he relieved himself of what he called his top hamper. But even now his old shipmate could not believe him in earnest. He did, though, when Tom darted from his side and took a header into the tide.

He swam up close in shore first for a good distance, then struck out across, but still heading up. For a time his messmate could even hear him singing a stave of that charming old song—

“Good-night—all’s well.”

“The last long notes,” said his mate, “rang down the wind like a death-knell.”

And death-knell it was to poor Tom. If ever he reached the ship’s longitude, he must have been carried past her with fearful speed, and—the curtain drops.

Chapter Ten.Book II—Patagonia and the Land of Fire.A Strange Introduction—Saint Helena and Fun on Shore—Cape Town.The amount of good advice vouchsafed to us before sailing, by dear aunt, was only equalled by the sum total of our own good resolves. There was nothing in the world we were not going to do and be that was worth doing or being. And every night of our lives for weeks before sailing, we made some new good intention, and duly entered it in the log of our memories.Alas! I fear that going to sea for the first time is very like entering upon a new year: there is the same firm determination to do good and to be good, and one invariably sticks to his intentions boldly—for a week or a fortnight.Our life now, I remember, was to be allcouleur de rose. There would not be a single hitch in it; it would spin over the wheels of time as softly as a well-coiled rope glides through a greased block. We were going to work like New Hollanders, and get up to the working of the ship in a month at the farthest, be able to reef, steer, and box the compass in another month; we would always be on deck three minutes before the watch was called; we would show the men a good example—we certainly had a good opinion of our little selves; we would be always cheerful and merry and willing; and last, but not least, we would keep such a log as would be worth handing over to the British Museum when done with.However, there is no harm in trying to be perfect; on the contrary, it shows a boy is ambitious, and an ambitious boy is certain to do well and advance. He may not obtain to the height of his ambition, but if he aims high he’ll hit high, nevertheless, although he may neither send his arrow through the moon nor set the Thames on fire.TheSalamanderwas a sailing ship, but a crack little craft at that, well-handled, and well-manned. A barque she was as to rig, but almost clipper built, without extra narrowness of beam. She was a strong, sturdy-timbered, safe ship, and could do a bit of handsome sailing on a wind.But being a sailing ship, she had to be towed by such a puffing little dirty noisy tug, all the way down the river. This is a sort of a beginning to a voyage that I never could endure. When I go to sea, I like best to get into blue water right away, just as I dearly love to take a header from the rocks into deep water when bathing—right splash down among the jelly fishes.But we hoisted sail at last with a deal of “yee-hoing” and sing-songing, then the tug and we parted company with a ringing cheer, which Jill and I took an eminent part in. Indeed, when the order was given to hoist the jib, both of us attempted to take an eminent part in that also, and were thunderstruck at being advised to go aft if we didn’t want our toes tramped. Why, the scramble in setting sail, the hurrying here and scurrying there, the noise and shouting, would have left a Rugby football match far in the rear.When sail was got up at last, and the water had entirely lost its pea-soup colour, theSalamanderwent bobbing and curtseying over the wee wavelets, swaying about like a pretty Spanish girl dancing a fandango, and with a motion altogether so pleasant, that I said to Jill I did not think there was any life in the world so pleasant as a life on the ocean wave.Just as I was saying this I received a dig from a thumb in the ribs, accompanied by that clicking sound a Jehu makes with his mouth when he wants his horse to “gee up.” I think it is spelt thus: “tsck!” If not, I do not know how to spell it.“Tsck! youngsters, how d’y’e like it? Eh! Tsck! Sorry to leave the shorie-worry. Eh? Tsck.”He was a youth of about fifteen, in blue pilot jacket with brass buttons, and a cap on the after-part of his head. He had a short neck and handsome face, but square chin, which he stuck very much up in the air when he spoke. I did not like him, then.I drew myself up to my full height—four feet six, I think—and asked him if he was aware he was taking an unwarrantable amount of familiarity with my ribs.I was using my very best English on him—auntie’s English.“What’s your name, chummy?”“Captain Coates may be able to inform you.”“Ha! ha! going to ride the high horse. Eh?”“What’s your name, little un? Tsck!” This to Jill.Jill bridled up now.“When I’m as big as you, I’ll thrash you,” said my brother.“But you’ll never be, ’cause I’ll keep growing. See?”I looked at him disdainfully up and down.“You don’t give promise at present,” I said, “of ever attaining heroic dimensions.”“Eh?” he said, putting a finger behind his left ear, as deaf people do. “I didn’t catch on. What ship did you say?”“Because,” I added, “you’re squat, and you’re not wholesome, nor handsome.”This was hardly handsome of me.He shook his head now as if in great grief.“Oh! you ungrateful little griffin,” he gasped out. “Here is poor innocent me come to chummy with you, and there is you a-rebuffing of me like everything. I declare it’s enough to make the binnacle pipe its eye.”Then he brightened up all at once.“I say,” he said, “was that old duchess your aunt? Uncommon fine old girl. Give you any yellow boys, eh?”I turned on my heel and walked away, arm-in-arm with Jill.At the same moment Mrs Coates and her black maid came up, and I was surprised to observe the immediate change in this young officer’s demeanour. He lifted his hat to the lady, and advanced almost shyly, certainly deferentially.“Now, boys,” said Mrs Coates, smiling, “let me make you acquainted with your brother officer, Mr Jeffries. Mr Jeffries—Master Reginald—and-all-the-rest-of-it Jones; Master Rupert, etc, Jones—twin brothers, as you may see.”Mr Jeffries cordially shook hands with us.“I really was trying to scrape acquaintance with them when you came on deck, Mrs Coates.”“How did you proceed?” asked the lady.“Well, I—I fear I dug them in the ribs rather, Mrs Coates, but I now most humbly apologise.”“And I have to apologise,” I returned, “for calling you squat and ugly.” I lifted my hat.“And I,” said Jill, lifting his hat, “have to apologise for saying I would thrash you—I won’t.”“No,” said Mr Jeffries, “I dare say you won’t yet awhile. Well, let’s all be pleasant. We’re all in the same boat. But boys, I’m plain Peter. Don’t Mr me.”“And I’m Jack.”“And I’m Jill.”“Oh,” laughed Mrs Coates, “then I must call my Jack—John.”I could not help thinking this was a very strange introduction, but the ice was broken, and that was everything.We had music after dinner, in our pretty little saloon, Mrs Coates and Peter playing duets together, he with the clarionet—on which charming instrument every boy should take lessons before going to sea—and she at the piano.We youngsters went on deck before turning in. The stars were all out, and all sail was crowded; but though well into the Channel, we made but little way, the sea all round being as calm as an English lake.We sat down together near the companion.“You don’t think me a very nasty fellow now, do you?” said Peter.“No, I begin to like you rather.”“Am I very ugly?”“No, not ugly, but you looked conceited.”“Well, so I perhaps am. Now, I’m lots older than you, and we’ve known each other all the evening, so forgive me for trying plainly to put you up to ropes. You’re green, and you must get rid of your lime-juice. Now,neverlose your temper.”“Oh! Jill,” I cried, laughing, “Peter is right, and we’ve broken our good resolve.”“Always take chaff in the spirit it is meant.”“So we had intended,” I sighed, “hadn’t we, Jill?”“Assuredly.”“Well, that’s all to-night. We’re friends?”“We are.”“Then, good-night. I have got to keep the first morning watch.”“Good-night, Peter.”“Jill,” I said, “we’ve made fools of ourselves already. Let us go down below, and turn in.”So we did, and cosy little cribs we had, and a little cabin all to ourselves—this is most exceptional, mind, but we were very young.Just after we got up from our knees,—“Give us the log-books,” I said, “Jill.”“I say, Jack,” said Jill, sleepily, “maybe it would be as well to write every day’s doings complete every morning.”“I dare say that would be best,” I said, “and I must say I’m feeling very tired.”Next day it was blowing a bit, and we had something else to occupy our minds than writing logs. Indeed I never felt so thoroughly bad and unambitious in my life. I did try to eat some breakfast, but the fish got it after. Jill was the same,soill, and the ship would keep capering about in a way that made me wish I’d been a soldier instead of a sailor.“How’re you getting on?” Peter often asked kindly. “Oh, you are not nearly so bad as I was at first, and on the day the mate rope-ended me off to my watch.”“Isn’t it blowing hard?” I ventured to ask.“Blowing? dear life no, it’s a glorious breeze.”The glorious breeze—how I hated such glory—kept at it for many days. The sea got rougher and the waves higher, and we got worse. I do not think anything would have induced me to go near a ship again, if a good angel had only put me down then at the door of Trafalgar Cottage.But every one was kind to us.Then one day the mate—he was rather a tartar—put us both in separate watches, and after this I think our sufferings began in earnest.Not a word had yet been written in the log, so that was our third good intention thrown to the winds.It really seemed to me that the mate was cruel; he did not kick us about, but he sent us flying, on very short notice too. And we dared not say a word. Then we had all kinds of little menial offices to perform, even for the captain’s cat and for two beautiful dogs that belonged to the mate. To be sure, there was a boy or two forward, but the mate told us—Jill and me—that he wanted to make men of us. He explained that no officer could ever know when a thing was well done unless he knew how to do it himself.Going aloft was at first fearful work. I’ll never forget, though, lying out on a yard making a sham of reefing, and holding on like a fly on a roof, praying, and expecting every moment to be hurled into the sea. It came easier at last, and before we reached Saint Helena, where we lay in, I could do a deal both below and aloft, and had hands and feet as good as the captain’s cat.Now if ever the lines of any two boys were cast in pleasant places on going first to sea, they were Jill’s and mine, and yet we were not happy. What would it have been had we been subjected to the thousand and one little tyrannies of ship life most apprentices have to endure? I’m not going to describe them, because I am telling a story, not giving a lecture; nor do I wish to say a word to prevent bold, hardy lads from adopting the sea as a profession; but let no one go to be a sailor lured by the romance and glamour thrown over it in too many sea novels.Peter and we got on shore together at Saint Helena. This was a treat, because we were now quite friendly, and I had not forgotten the good advice he gave us the first evening we met.Leila, Mrs Coates’ maid, also had a passage on shore in the same boat, and Peter, much to the amusement of the men—with whom, by the way, he was a great favourite—pretended to make love to her all the way. He told her, to begin with, that her name was sweetly poetic, and pretty. So far he was right. Then he said her teeth were like pearls. Leila grinned, simpered, and showed her teeth. And really Peter was not far wrong. Having adhered to the truth so far, I believe Leila was in a position to believe anything. So Peter praised her eyes next. He said they reminded him of koh-i-noors floating in a bucket of tar, and he referred to the coxswain to say whether he was not right. The coxswain confessed that diamonds were never so numerous where he had been, as to float them on tar, but that Leila was pretty enough to make a fellow pitch a ball of spun-yard at the captain’s head if she asked him to.For this pretty compliment the coxswain received a dig in the ribs from Leila that well-nigh sent him overboard among the sharks and turtles, and certainly took his breath away.“Oh!” cried the coxswain. “If that’s your way of showing your affection, my beauty, a little of it goes a long way.”“What for you tease a poor girl, then?”“Your hair, my Leila—” began Peter again.“Cut it short, Mr Jeffries,” cried the coxswain, laughing; “why, sir, you can’t praise that!”“Cut it short!” said Peter; “why it couldn’t be shorter. But look at those crisp wee ringlets, how they curl round one’s affections, how they entwine themselves with every poetic feeling—”“Way enough—oars,” shouted the coxswain.There was indeed way enough. The good fellow had not been keeping his weather eye lifting, and now the boat took the beach with such force that nearly all hands caught crabs, the bewitching Leila among the rest.Peter made haste to help her up, and assisted her on shore. He even carried his politeness so far as to offer her his arm along the beach.“You go ’long now,” she replied. “You nothing but one piccaninny. I not can gib dis heart ob mine to a child so small as you.”Jill and I laughed, and Peter laughed good-naturedly, and fell back.“Bother it all, boys, she’s got the best of me after all.”Here, in James’s Town, as in other places, my brother and I attracted universal attention, among blacks and whites, by our wonderful resemblance to each other. And they did not hesitate to show it. For instance, I was some distance behind Jill and Peter, when I met a bluff old sailor.“Hullo! matie,” he shouted, “blessed if I ain’t three sheets in the wind. I could have sworn I met you a minute ago, and there you are again. I’ll go back and have a sleep. Can’t go on board like this.”But when he saw the two of us together, he concluded to go on board, after treating himself to another glass of beer, and drinking our healths. So we had to “shout” as Peter called it.Before we entered the little inn, which was kept by a highly respectable man of colour, Peter pushed me unceremoniously into a little stable place, and told me to wait till come for.I obeyed, feeling sure Peter was up to some lark. About five minutes after, the door was opened, not by Peter, but by a black man in a white jacket.He sprang back in amazement when he saw me.“You must be de debbil, sah,” he said.“Thank you,” I replied, “butyou’remore of his colour.”The explanation is this: after calling for beer and sherbet, Peter, who knew the landlord, having been here before, said—“Now, Mr Brown, you see this young gentleman,” alluding to Jill.“Yes, sah,” said Mr Brown, “pertiklerly handsom boy, sah.”“True,” said Peter, “but his chief peculiarity is his ubiquitousness.”“Yes, sah, sure ’nuff, sah; come to look again, he is rather obliquitous.”“He can go through a key-hole.”The man drew back.“Now, come and I’ll show you.” And upstairs the three went; and after making sure the window was properly fastened, Jill was duly locked into the room, and the landlord put the key in his pocket. In a minute after they returned. The room was empty to all appearance—Jill, in fact, was behind a chair in a corner. The landlord peeped under the bed, then stared in blank amazement.“Now come on,” cried Peter, “we’ll find him out of doors. Go and look in your little stable.”And there, of course, Mr Brown found me. Meanwhile Jill had got downstairs, and had hidden himself in the parlour, so that Peter had an opportunity of ringing the changes on this trick in several ways.Finally we both appeared at once.“I’m going to pay for the sherbet,” said I and Jill both in a breath, and both extending our hands at once.“No, sah,” said Mr Brown, “I not touch it. P’r’aps sah, the money is obliquitous too—ha! ha!”We had a deal of fun that day one way or another, and very much enjoyed our visit to Napoleon’s tomb. I believe I should have waxed quite romantic about that, or about some of the splendid views we saw on every side of us, but who could be romantic with Peter alongside making us laugh every moment?After returning, we went to climb ladder hill. Every one does so, therefore we must. The ladder leads up the face of a cliff about four hundred feet high.“I think,” said Peter, “I see my way to a final joke before going off. Jill, old man, you hide down here till I shout from the cliff top, then come slowly up the ladder, rubbing yourself as if you had tumbled.”Then up we went. We were in luck. An old gentleman at the top was watching our ascent from under his white umbrella. We said “good afternoon,” and passed along some little way, and at a sign from Peter I got into hiding.Peter ran back. “Oh!” he cried, “I fear my young friend has fallen over the cliff.”“Dear me, dear me,” said the old gentleman, looking bewilderedly round, “sohe must have. How very, very terrible.”“But it won’t hurt him, will it?”“Hurt him? why he’ll be cat’s meat by this time.”“Oh, you don’t know my friend,” said Peter. “He’s a perfect little gutta-percha ball, he is.”Then he shouted, “Jill—Jill, are you hurt?”And when Jill presently came puffing and blowing up the ladder, and making pretence to dust his jacket, that old gentleman’s face was such a picture of mingled amazement and terror that I felt sorry for him; so I suddenly appeared on the scene, and, according to Peter, thus spoiled the sport.Jill and I had built all sorts of castles in the air anent our arrival at Cape Town, and the meeting with our darling mother and brave papa. We were not in the least little bit afraid of a scolding from either.TheSalamanderwas to lie here for a whole week, so we would be certain to enjoy ourselves if—ah! there always is anif. I do not believe there ever was a castle in the air yet that had not a big ugly ogre living in some corner of it. Supposing father were killed, or something happened to mamma.But here was theCapeat last, and the bay, and the town, and the grand old hills above. It was early in the morning when we dropped anchor, but there was plenty of bustle and stir on the water nevertheless. The houses looked very white in the sun’s glare, which was so bright on the water that we could scarcely look on it. The hills were purple, grey, and green with patches of bright crimson here and there, for it was early summer in this latitude. Indeed, everywhere around us was ablaze with sunlight and beauty. But all this fell flat on Jill and me, and we did not feel any near approach to happiness till the boat was speeding swiftly towards the landing with us. For somewhere in shore yonder lived, we hoped, all we held truly dear.

The amount of good advice vouchsafed to us before sailing, by dear aunt, was only equalled by the sum total of our own good resolves. There was nothing in the world we were not going to do and be that was worth doing or being. And every night of our lives for weeks before sailing, we made some new good intention, and duly entered it in the log of our memories.

Alas! I fear that going to sea for the first time is very like entering upon a new year: there is the same firm determination to do good and to be good, and one invariably sticks to his intentions boldly—for a week or a fortnight.

Our life now, I remember, was to be allcouleur de rose. There would not be a single hitch in it; it would spin over the wheels of time as softly as a well-coiled rope glides through a greased block. We were going to work like New Hollanders, and get up to the working of the ship in a month at the farthest, be able to reef, steer, and box the compass in another month; we would always be on deck three minutes before the watch was called; we would show the men a good example—we certainly had a good opinion of our little selves; we would be always cheerful and merry and willing; and last, but not least, we would keep such a log as would be worth handing over to the British Museum when done with.

However, there is no harm in trying to be perfect; on the contrary, it shows a boy is ambitious, and an ambitious boy is certain to do well and advance. He may not obtain to the height of his ambition, but if he aims high he’ll hit high, nevertheless, although he may neither send his arrow through the moon nor set the Thames on fire.

TheSalamanderwas a sailing ship, but a crack little craft at that, well-handled, and well-manned. A barque she was as to rig, but almost clipper built, without extra narrowness of beam. She was a strong, sturdy-timbered, safe ship, and could do a bit of handsome sailing on a wind.

But being a sailing ship, she had to be towed by such a puffing little dirty noisy tug, all the way down the river. This is a sort of a beginning to a voyage that I never could endure. When I go to sea, I like best to get into blue water right away, just as I dearly love to take a header from the rocks into deep water when bathing—right splash down among the jelly fishes.

But we hoisted sail at last with a deal of “yee-hoing” and sing-songing, then the tug and we parted company with a ringing cheer, which Jill and I took an eminent part in. Indeed, when the order was given to hoist the jib, both of us attempted to take an eminent part in that also, and were thunderstruck at being advised to go aft if we didn’t want our toes tramped. Why, the scramble in setting sail, the hurrying here and scurrying there, the noise and shouting, would have left a Rugby football match far in the rear.

When sail was got up at last, and the water had entirely lost its pea-soup colour, theSalamanderwent bobbing and curtseying over the wee wavelets, swaying about like a pretty Spanish girl dancing a fandango, and with a motion altogether so pleasant, that I said to Jill I did not think there was any life in the world so pleasant as a life on the ocean wave.

Just as I was saying this I received a dig from a thumb in the ribs, accompanied by that clicking sound a Jehu makes with his mouth when he wants his horse to “gee up.” I think it is spelt thus: “tsck!” If not, I do not know how to spell it.

“Tsck! youngsters, how d’y’e like it? Eh! Tsck! Sorry to leave the shorie-worry. Eh? Tsck.”

He was a youth of about fifteen, in blue pilot jacket with brass buttons, and a cap on the after-part of his head. He had a short neck and handsome face, but square chin, which he stuck very much up in the air when he spoke. I did not like him, then.

I drew myself up to my full height—four feet six, I think—and asked him if he was aware he was taking an unwarrantable amount of familiarity with my ribs.

I was using my very best English on him—auntie’s English.

“What’s your name, chummy?”

“Captain Coates may be able to inform you.”

“Ha! ha! going to ride the high horse. Eh?”

“What’s your name, little un? Tsck!” This to Jill.

Jill bridled up now.

“When I’m as big as you, I’ll thrash you,” said my brother.

“But you’ll never be, ’cause I’ll keep growing. See?”

I looked at him disdainfully up and down.

“You don’t give promise at present,” I said, “of ever attaining heroic dimensions.”

“Eh?” he said, putting a finger behind his left ear, as deaf people do. “I didn’t catch on. What ship did you say?”

“Because,” I added, “you’re squat, and you’re not wholesome, nor handsome.”

This was hardly handsome of me.

He shook his head now as if in great grief.

“Oh! you ungrateful little griffin,” he gasped out. “Here is poor innocent me come to chummy with you, and there is you a-rebuffing of me like everything. I declare it’s enough to make the binnacle pipe its eye.”

Then he brightened up all at once.

“I say,” he said, “was that old duchess your aunt? Uncommon fine old girl. Give you any yellow boys, eh?”

I turned on my heel and walked away, arm-in-arm with Jill.

At the same moment Mrs Coates and her black maid came up, and I was surprised to observe the immediate change in this young officer’s demeanour. He lifted his hat to the lady, and advanced almost shyly, certainly deferentially.

“Now, boys,” said Mrs Coates, smiling, “let me make you acquainted with your brother officer, Mr Jeffries. Mr Jeffries—Master Reginald—and-all-the-rest-of-it Jones; Master Rupert, etc, Jones—twin brothers, as you may see.”

Mr Jeffries cordially shook hands with us.

“I really was trying to scrape acquaintance with them when you came on deck, Mrs Coates.”

“How did you proceed?” asked the lady.

“Well, I—I fear I dug them in the ribs rather, Mrs Coates, but I now most humbly apologise.”

“And I have to apologise,” I returned, “for calling you squat and ugly.” I lifted my hat.

“And I,” said Jill, lifting his hat, “have to apologise for saying I would thrash you—I won’t.”

“No,” said Mr Jeffries, “I dare say you won’t yet awhile. Well, let’s all be pleasant. We’re all in the same boat. But boys, I’m plain Peter. Don’t Mr me.”

“And I’m Jack.”

“And I’m Jill.”

“Oh,” laughed Mrs Coates, “then I must call my Jack—John.”

I could not help thinking this was a very strange introduction, but the ice was broken, and that was everything.

We had music after dinner, in our pretty little saloon, Mrs Coates and Peter playing duets together, he with the clarionet—on which charming instrument every boy should take lessons before going to sea—and she at the piano.

We youngsters went on deck before turning in. The stars were all out, and all sail was crowded; but though well into the Channel, we made but little way, the sea all round being as calm as an English lake.

We sat down together near the companion.

“You don’t think me a very nasty fellow now, do you?” said Peter.

“No, I begin to like you rather.”

“Am I very ugly?”

“No, not ugly, but you looked conceited.”

“Well, so I perhaps am. Now, I’m lots older than you, and we’ve known each other all the evening, so forgive me for trying plainly to put you up to ropes. You’re green, and you must get rid of your lime-juice. Now,neverlose your temper.”

“Oh! Jill,” I cried, laughing, “Peter is right, and we’ve broken our good resolve.”

“Always take chaff in the spirit it is meant.”

“So we had intended,” I sighed, “hadn’t we, Jill?”

“Assuredly.”

“Well, that’s all to-night. We’re friends?”

“We are.”

“Then, good-night. I have got to keep the first morning watch.”

“Good-night, Peter.”

“Jill,” I said, “we’ve made fools of ourselves already. Let us go down below, and turn in.”

So we did, and cosy little cribs we had, and a little cabin all to ourselves—this is most exceptional, mind, but we were very young.

Just after we got up from our knees,—

“Give us the log-books,” I said, “Jill.”

“I say, Jack,” said Jill, sleepily, “maybe it would be as well to write every day’s doings complete every morning.”

“I dare say that would be best,” I said, “and I must say I’m feeling very tired.”

Next day it was blowing a bit, and we had something else to occupy our minds than writing logs. Indeed I never felt so thoroughly bad and unambitious in my life. I did try to eat some breakfast, but the fish got it after. Jill was the same,soill, and the ship would keep capering about in a way that made me wish I’d been a soldier instead of a sailor.

“How’re you getting on?” Peter often asked kindly. “Oh, you are not nearly so bad as I was at first, and on the day the mate rope-ended me off to my watch.”

“Isn’t it blowing hard?” I ventured to ask.

“Blowing? dear life no, it’s a glorious breeze.”

The glorious breeze—how I hated such glory—kept at it for many days. The sea got rougher and the waves higher, and we got worse. I do not think anything would have induced me to go near a ship again, if a good angel had only put me down then at the door of Trafalgar Cottage.

But every one was kind to us.

Then one day the mate—he was rather a tartar—put us both in separate watches, and after this I think our sufferings began in earnest.

Not a word had yet been written in the log, so that was our third good intention thrown to the winds.

It really seemed to me that the mate was cruel; he did not kick us about, but he sent us flying, on very short notice too. And we dared not say a word. Then we had all kinds of little menial offices to perform, even for the captain’s cat and for two beautiful dogs that belonged to the mate. To be sure, there was a boy or two forward, but the mate told us—Jill and me—that he wanted to make men of us. He explained that no officer could ever know when a thing was well done unless he knew how to do it himself.

Going aloft was at first fearful work. I’ll never forget, though, lying out on a yard making a sham of reefing, and holding on like a fly on a roof, praying, and expecting every moment to be hurled into the sea. It came easier at last, and before we reached Saint Helena, where we lay in, I could do a deal both below and aloft, and had hands and feet as good as the captain’s cat.

Now if ever the lines of any two boys were cast in pleasant places on going first to sea, they were Jill’s and mine, and yet we were not happy. What would it have been had we been subjected to the thousand and one little tyrannies of ship life most apprentices have to endure? I’m not going to describe them, because I am telling a story, not giving a lecture; nor do I wish to say a word to prevent bold, hardy lads from adopting the sea as a profession; but let no one go to be a sailor lured by the romance and glamour thrown over it in too many sea novels.

Peter and we got on shore together at Saint Helena. This was a treat, because we were now quite friendly, and I had not forgotten the good advice he gave us the first evening we met.

Leila, Mrs Coates’ maid, also had a passage on shore in the same boat, and Peter, much to the amusement of the men—with whom, by the way, he was a great favourite—pretended to make love to her all the way. He told her, to begin with, that her name was sweetly poetic, and pretty. So far he was right. Then he said her teeth were like pearls. Leila grinned, simpered, and showed her teeth. And really Peter was not far wrong. Having adhered to the truth so far, I believe Leila was in a position to believe anything. So Peter praised her eyes next. He said they reminded him of koh-i-noors floating in a bucket of tar, and he referred to the coxswain to say whether he was not right. The coxswain confessed that diamonds were never so numerous where he had been, as to float them on tar, but that Leila was pretty enough to make a fellow pitch a ball of spun-yard at the captain’s head if she asked him to.

For this pretty compliment the coxswain received a dig in the ribs from Leila that well-nigh sent him overboard among the sharks and turtles, and certainly took his breath away.

“Oh!” cried the coxswain. “If that’s your way of showing your affection, my beauty, a little of it goes a long way.”

“What for you tease a poor girl, then?”

“Your hair, my Leila—” began Peter again.

“Cut it short, Mr Jeffries,” cried the coxswain, laughing; “why, sir, you can’t praise that!”

“Cut it short!” said Peter; “why it couldn’t be shorter. But look at those crisp wee ringlets, how they curl round one’s affections, how they entwine themselves with every poetic feeling—”

“Way enough—oars,” shouted the coxswain.

There was indeed way enough. The good fellow had not been keeping his weather eye lifting, and now the boat took the beach with such force that nearly all hands caught crabs, the bewitching Leila among the rest.

Peter made haste to help her up, and assisted her on shore. He even carried his politeness so far as to offer her his arm along the beach.

“You go ’long now,” she replied. “You nothing but one piccaninny. I not can gib dis heart ob mine to a child so small as you.”

Jill and I laughed, and Peter laughed good-naturedly, and fell back.

“Bother it all, boys, she’s got the best of me after all.”

Here, in James’s Town, as in other places, my brother and I attracted universal attention, among blacks and whites, by our wonderful resemblance to each other. And they did not hesitate to show it. For instance, I was some distance behind Jill and Peter, when I met a bluff old sailor.

“Hullo! matie,” he shouted, “blessed if I ain’t three sheets in the wind. I could have sworn I met you a minute ago, and there you are again. I’ll go back and have a sleep. Can’t go on board like this.”

But when he saw the two of us together, he concluded to go on board, after treating himself to another glass of beer, and drinking our healths. So we had to “shout” as Peter called it.

Before we entered the little inn, which was kept by a highly respectable man of colour, Peter pushed me unceremoniously into a little stable place, and told me to wait till come for.

I obeyed, feeling sure Peter was up to some lark. About five minutes after, the door was opened, not by Peter, but by a black man in a white jacket.

He sprang back in amazement when he saw me.

“You must be de debbil, sah,” he said.

“Thank you,” I replied, “butyou’remore of his colour.”

The explanation is this: after calling for beer and sherbet, Peter, who knew the landlord, having been here before, said—

“Now, Mr Brown, you see this young gentleman,” alluding to Jill.

“Yes, sah,” said Mr Brown, “pertiklerly handsom boy, sah.”

“True,” said Peter, “but his chief peculiarity is his ubiquitousness.”

“Yes, sah, sure ’nuff, sah; come to look again, he is rather obliquitous.”

“He can go through a key-hole.”

The man drew back.

“Now, come and I’ll show you.” And upstairs the three went; and after making sure the window was properly fastened, Jill was duly locked into the room, and the landlord put the key in his pocket. In a minute after they returned. The room was empty to all appearance—Jill, in fact, was behind a chair in a corner. The landlord peeped under the bed, then stared in blank amazement.

“Now come on,” cried Peter, “we’ll find him out of doors. Go and look in your little stable.”

And there, of course, Mr Brown found me. Meanwhile Jill had got downstairs, and had hidden himself in the parlour, so that Peter had an opportunity of ringing the changes on this trick in several ways.

Finally we both appeared at once.

“I’m going to pay for the sherbet,” said I and Jill both in a breath, and both extending our hands at once.

“No, sah,” said Mr Brown, “I not touch it. P’r’aps sah, the money is obliquitous too—ha! ha!”

We had a deal of fun that day one way or another, and very much enjoyed our visit to Napoleon’s tomb. I believe I should have waxed quite romantic about that, or about some of the splendid views we saw on every side of us, but who could be romantic with Peter alongside making us laugh every moment?

After returning, we went to climb ladder hill. Every one does so, therefore we must. The ladder leads up the face of a cliff about four hundred feet high.

“I think,” said Peter, “I see my way to a final joke before going off. Jill, old man, you hide down here till I shout from the cliff top, then come slowly up the ladder, rubbing yourself as if you had tumbled.”

Then up we went. We were in luck. An old gentleman at the top was watching our ascent from under his white umbrella. We said “good afternoon,” and passed along some little way, and at a sign from Peter I got into hiding.

Peter ran back. “Oh!” he cried, “I fear my young friend has fallen over the cliff.”

“Dear me, dear me,” said the old gentleman, looking bewilderedly round, “sohe must have. How very, very terrible.”

“But it won’t hurt him, will it?”

“Hurt him? why he’ll be cat’s meat by this time.”

“Oh, you don’t know my friend,” said Peter. “He’s a perfect little gutta-percha ball, he is.”

Then he shouted, “Jill—Jill, are you hurt?”

And when Jill presently came puffing and blowing up the ladder, and making pretence to dust his jacket, that old gentleman’s face was such a picture of mingled amazement and terror that I felt sorry for him; so I suddenly appeared on the scene, and, according to Peter, thus spoiled the sport.

Jill and I had built all sorts of castles in the air anent our arrival at Cape Town, and the meeting with our darling mother and brave papa. We were not in the least little bit afraid of a scolding from either.

TheSalamanderwas to lie here for a whole week, so we would be certain to enjoy ourselves if—ah! there always is anif. I do not believe there ever was a castle in the air yet that had not a big ugly ogre living in some corner of it. Supposing father were killed, or something happened to mamma.

But here was theCapeat last, and the bay, and the town, and the grand old hills above. It was early in the morning when we dropped anchor, but there was plenty of bustle and stir on the water nevertheless. The houses looked very white in the sun’s glare, which was so bright on the water that we could scarcely look on it. The hills were purple, grey, and green with patches of bright crimson here and there, for it was early summer in this latitude. Indeed, everywhere around us was ablaze with sunlight and beauty. But all this fell flat on Jill and me, and we did not feel any near approach to happiness till the boat was speeding swiftly towards the landing with us. For somewhere in shore yonder lived, we hoped, all we held truly dear.

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