Thus, their present position was a thousandfold more terrible than the one before.

But, still, only boys though they were, hope did not yet quite desert them.

The indomitable courage of youth triumphed over disaster.

For a few seconds neither could speak.

However, when the ship had disappeared, going away as silently as she had approached them, they bestirred themselves to see what damage the cutter had sustained.

Bob was the first to recall his scattered wits.

"Well, they haven't sunk us, as I was afraid they would, Dick!" said he. "I wonder if any of the planks are really started?"

"How can we see, Master Bob?" asked Dick anxiously. "So as to know if she be all right?"

"Why, by baling her out," he answered. "If we lessen the water in her, then we'll know she's all right."

"But if the water don't go down?"

"Then, we will!" replied Bob rather curtly. "Have you got anything to bale her out with?"

"Well, Master Bob," observed Dick, grinning, "fur a young gen'leman as is so sharp, you've got a orful bad mem'ry! Don't 'ee recollect the booket as ye helped me fur to wash down the decks wi' this very marnin'?"

"Dear me, Dick, I declare I quite forgot that!" said Bob, with a laugh, seeing Dick's grin; for, it was not so dark now in their immediate vicinity, the breeze having lifted the fog slightly from the surface of the water. "Where is the bucket stored?"

"In the locker, joost by 'ee," was Dick's response, as he waded through the water and came up to his companion. "Stop, I'll get 'im for 'ee! I'll have to make a dive fur he, though!"

"Have you got it?" inquired Bob, after Dick had groped about for some time, popping his head under water and coming up at intervals for breath. "Have you got it?"

"'Ees," said he at length, lugging out the bucket, "I've got 'im!"

Then, they set to work, each using it alternately.

The exertion did them both good, too, standing up as they were to their middles in water; for, it prevented them shivering with cold as they had before done.

Bucketful after bucketful they emptied over the side; and, still they did not appear to decrease the quantity the cutter contained to any appreciable extent, bale they, as they baled, their hardest!

Gradually, however, the after-thwart became clear.

"Hooray!" exclaimed Bob. "We're gaining on it."

This inspired them with renewed strength; and, after nearly an hour's hard work, they had so lessened the water that only a small portion now remained washing about under the bottom boards of the boat, which, recovering all her old buoyancy, floated again with a high freeboard, light as a cork, above the surface of the sea, instead of being level with it as before.

"That's a good job done!" said Dick. "I wish that theer murderin' shep hadn't a-bruk our mast; fur, we'd soon been all right!"

"While you're about it, Dick," said Bob, "you might, just as well, wish she hadn't carried the mast and boom away with her. I don't believe they've left us anything!"

No, the colliding ship had made a "clean sweep" of all their spars and rigging and everything; hardly a rope's-end remaining attached to the cutter, beyond a part of the mainsheet and a bit of the forestay, which latter was hanging down from the bowsprit, the only spar the yacht had left.

Not a single thing of all her deck-fittings, either, had the little vessel to the good; even her tiller had been wrenched off and the rudder smashed.

Nor were there any oars left in the little craft; though, even if there had been, the yacht was too heavy for boys like Bob and Dick to have made her move at the most infinitesimal rate of speed.

It is true, there was the old gaff-topsail still in the fore-peak, as well as a spare jib; but they had nothing to spread them out to the wind with, or affix them to.

They were, in fact, oar-less, sail-less, helpless!

"I don't see what we can do," said Bob, when they had looked over all the boat, in case something perchance might have escaped their notice. "We can only hope and pray!"

"Aye, do 'ee pray, Master Bob," replied Dick eagerly. "P'r'aps God'll hear us and send us help!"

So, then and there the two boys knelt down together side by side in the battered boat, that drifted about at the mercy of the wind and sea, imploring the aid of Him who heeds those who call upon Him for succour, in no wise refusing them or turning a deaf ear to their prayers!

By and by, as if in answer to their earnest supplications, the day dawned; when, the mist, which yet lingered over the water, hanging about here and there in little patches, like so many floating islands, was either swallowed up by the sea or absorbed into the air, as if by magic.

Bob and Dick now got some idea as to the points of the compass, even if they were not able to tell precisely where they were; for, as the day advanced, a rosy tinge crept upwards over a far-off quarter of the horizon which they knew instinctively to be the east, the birthplace of all light!

This tint, almost like a blush, spread quickly over the sky, reaching away to the north and again south, coming full in both their faces and making them glow.

The bright hue then gradually melted into a ruddier tone, which first darkened into purple and red and then rapidly changed to a greenish sort of neutral tone that, after an interval, finally became merged into the pure ultramarine of the zenith; for, the heavens were now as clear as a bell, no mist or fog or cloud obscuring the expanse of the empyrean.

A sort of golden vapour then, all of a sudden, flooded the east, which in another second gave place to the red rays of the crimson sun; though the latter did not seem so much to rise, but rather appeared to Bob, who was watching intently the various changes that occurred, to jump in an instant above the sea, glorifying it far and near with its presence and warming it into life,

This warmth soon cheered the boys, as the light banished the despondent feelings inseparable, as a rule, from darkness and, beyond that, the death-like stillness around, which had previously added to their fears, was banished by the new stir and movement observable in everything.

Previously, the sea had risen and fallen tumidly, as if Father Neptune had been asleep and its monotonous pulsation was caused by his deep, long-drawn breathing; but, now, it crisped and sparkled in the sunshine, whilst its surface was broken by innumerable little wavelets, like curls, that grew into swell-crested billows anon, and, later on still, into great rolling waves as the wind got up—this blowing steadily from the eastwards first and then veering round south, following the course of the orb whose heat gave it being.

Nor was inanimate nature only stirring.

Grey and silver sea-gulls hovered over the little cutter, all sweeping down curiously every now and then to see what the boys were doing there in that mastless and oar-less boat out on the wide waters; and, presently, a shoal of mackerel rose round about them, so thickly that Dick thought he could scoop up some in the buckets, only the fish were too wary and dived down below the surface the moment he stretched his arm out over the side beyond his reach.

A couple of porpoises, too, swam by, playing leap-frog again; and, after these, a much larger monster, which might possibly have been a grampus, though Bob could tell nothing about it, not knowing what it was. The movements of all these, with the constantly-changing appearance of the sea, now blue, now green, now brown, as some cloud shadow passed over it, made up a varied panorama such as neither of the two lads ever saw or thought of before!

Ships, also, hove in sight and disappeared on the horizon, their white sails gleaming out in the far-off distance; one moment high in the air as if bound skywards, the next sinking into the curving depths of the sea.

Now and again, too, the smoke-wreath of some passing steamer, coasting along more speedily than the sailing craft, would sacrilegiously blot the blue of the heavens!

But, all the while, though the distant ships might sail along to their haven, and the steamers shape shorter courses to their port independent of wind and tide alike, the poor dismasted, dismantled little yacht was the sport of all alike; first setting down Channel with the ebb, as if going out on a cruise into the wide Atlantic, and then again up Channel with the flood towards Dover.

The boat was ever drifting and tossed about ever, like a battered shuttlecock, by the battledore currents, some four of which contend for the mastery throughout the livelong day in that wonderful waterway, the English Channel; two always setting east, relieving each other in turn, and two west, with a cross-tide coming atop of them, twice in every twenty-four hours, trying fruitlessly to soothe the differences of the quarrelsome quartette!



CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

DESPAIR!

"How hot it be, Master Bob!" said Dick, when the sun had climbed so high that he seemed right overhead, sending down his rays vertically and making it so warm that the boys began to perspire, while they were tormented with thirst. "I be parched wi' drout and could swaller a gallon o' spring wutter if I hed the chance!"

"I say, let us have a swim," suggested Bob. "I've heard it will relieve a person suffering from thirst; and, besides, I believe it will do us both good and freshen us up."

"All right, Master Bob," said Dick somewhat hesitatingly, in reply to this proposition. "But, ain't it deep here?"

"Deep! What does that matter?" replied Bob lightly. "Why, Dick, you silly fellow, you forget we always used to swim out every morning into deep water. Ah, I forget, I forget! Oh,—mother, my mother!"

The poor boy broke down utterly again at this point, it having suddenly flashed across his memory that his former swims from the beach were things of the past; and that he might never see his mother or any of the home folk again.

No, never, ah, never again!

Dick, however, once more comforted him, ceasing to dwell on his own pangs of thirst; although the lad's tongue had swollen to such a size that it seemed too big for his mouth, and his lips were all parched and cracked.

A little later, when Bob had become more composed again, his idea of a battle was carried out, the boys making use of their solitary rope, the end of the broken forestay that was hanging from the bowsprit, to climb back into the boat after they had had a dip alongside.

They were not able to swim far, being incapable of much exertion; but the plunge alone and the immersion in the water while holding to the rope's-end refreshed them greatly, making them feel stronger, in addition to allaying their burning thirst.

Still, when this great longing was quenched, they were tortured with hunger, Dick actually tearing off one of the soles of his boots and setting to work gnawing it.

Bob kept up his spirits so far as to make fun of this, chaffing his companion and saying that he preferred the way in which the Captain served up his soles to Dick's!

"Ah," said the other in reply, "I wonder what the good Cap'en 'ud think if he seed us now?"

"Why, that we were two unfortunate fellows!" replied Bob, becoming grave again in an instant. "I'm sure he would pity us from the bottom of his heart!"

Thus the long day wore on; although, it seemed as if it would never end!

However, when night came round again, they wished they had yet the day; it was so dark, so dreary, so eerie, pitching and rolling about there, carried hither and thither as the tide listed, with never a vista of the wished-for land, with never a sound but the sobbing sea.

Yet, it was wonderful how the boys encouraged each other to bear up and be hopeful, in spite of everything.

Whenever, in the early morning previously and during the day in their respective sufferings, one or the other grew despondent Dick cheered Bob and Bob cheered Dick, as the case might be.

Then, somehow or other, the principal portion of the cheering-up work was borne by Dick; the very brightness and look of everything, even while he noticed them, seeming to have the effect of depressing Bob's spirits by some unknown association or connection with those at home.

At night, however, it was Bob's turn to sustain the drooping courage of Dick, who, like most country-bred lads, was intensely superstitious, fancying the darkness to swarm with ghosts and goblins, who were on the watch to devour him; the boy, while bearing up bravely against palpable privations and open dangers, staring them in the face, from which grown men would have quailed, was now affected by silly fears which a baby would have blushed to own!

All through the wearisome hours of the dragging night, whose minutes were as iron and hours like lead, he was constantly starting up in nervous terror; the moan of the sea, the cry of some belated sea-gull, the plunge of a fish in the water, nay even the creaking of the boat's own timbers, with each and all of which Dick was perfectly familiar, alike arousing his frenzied alarm.

It was, "Lawks, Master Bob! what be this now?" throughout the terrible interval that elapsed between the fading of the twilight on the one day and sunrise on the next. "Lor', what's that?"

And, that next day!

The boys were weaker then, for very nearly eight-and-forty hours had elapsed since they had been on board the cutter; forty-eight hours without food, without any regular sleep, without any real rest even, as their attention was always kept on the alert, while, all the time, the peril they were in was sufficient alone to have crushed their every energy!

Hope, undying hope that had kept them up so long, now left them at last. Who could hope against such continual disappointment, with ships all around them sometimes and yet never a one to come near where they floated and drifted and gave way to their despair?

Towards the evening of this day Dick got very weak.

Strange to say, although brought up in the country and accustomed, probably, all his early life, at any rate, to exposure and hard living, Dick was not able to bear up against their present sufferings by any means so well as Bob, who, on this third night of their being adrift, was yet full of vitality!

It was in vain for him, though, to try and reanimate Dick, who, hopeless, and almost helpless, lay down in the bottom of the boat, only asking to be left alone to die.

"I'm a-dying, Master Bob," he gasped out faintly, when Bob tried to raise him up. "Let me be; let me be!"

"Dying, nonsense," repeated Bob, pretending to joke about it; though, truth to say, he felt in little joking mood then, being almost as weak as his companion. "You are worth twenty dead men yet, as the old Captain would say!"

But, in spite of all his encouraging words, Dick grew gradually weaker and weaker; until, towards midnight, his breathing became so very faint that Bob could hardly feel it, though kneeling down close beside him and with his face touching that of poor Dick.

"I'm a-dying—Master Bob," he whispered, in such low accents that Bob had to bend down his ear close to his mouth to hear what he said. "I bees—a-dying—Mas-ter—Bob. I knows—I—be! I—hears—the—h'angels— a-flapping on their wings! I knows they be a-coming—for—me! God— bless—'ee, Mas-ter—Bob! Ah, if—'ee—ever—get—'shore—'gain—tell— Cap'—I—didn't—mean—no—'arm!"

Soon after faltering out these broken words, Dick fell back insensible in the bottom of the boat.

"Oh, Dick, poor Dick, good Dick!" sobbed out Bob, throwing himself down beside him on the floor of the boat's little cabin and bursting into an agony of tears. "It is I who have killed you. But for me, you would never have been here at all! Poor, brave Dick, you saved my life, and in return I've killed you!"

The torture of mind in which he now was on seeing, as he thought, Dick dead before him, coupled with all he had already gone through, but of which he had taken little heed while he had his comrade to console, now coming together affected Bob's mind.

He began to wander in delirium, imagining himself not only safe ashore, but in his London home, amid all the surroundings to which he had been accustomed before coming to Southsea and to this sad extremity.

He thought it was Sunday and that he was going to church with his mother and Nell; and that he was late, as usual, and they were calling him to hurry.

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" he screamed out in such a shrill voice, attenuated by famine, as hardly to be recognised as human, so shrill that it startled the sea-gulls hovering over the boat. "I'm coming! There's lots of time, the bells are ringing still! The bells are ringing, I hear them!—Ring—ring—ring—I—hear—I hear—I—"

Then he, too, lost consciousness and fell, like a log, insensible, across the body of poor Dick; the far-off bell which he had fancied to be ringing miles and miles distant from where the boat was floating in the Channel, being the last echo that sounded in his ears as he fainted away.

But, there was reason in his madness.

A bell was ringing; and ringing too realistically not to be real!



CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

ON THE CASQUETTES.

Bob's hearing was not at fault, this sense of his remaining perfect though his mind was wandering; and so, the unwonted sound that fell upon his ear had got woven amongst his delirious fancies.

It was, without doubt, a real bell, which if it might not summon pious folk to prayer, yet fulfilled almost as sacred a duty, warning, as it did, poor mariners of impending peril and so answering the petition oft put up "for those travelling by sea."

This ball belonged to the lighthouse-tower erected on the highest peak of the Casquettes, a terrible group of rocks jutting out into the Channel, just off the French coast hard by Alderney, some six miles to the north-west of which island they lie. Rocks that are cruel and relentless as the surges that sweep over them in stormy weather, and which are so quaintly named from their helmet, or "casque"-like resemblance—rocks, concerning which the poet Swinburne has sung in his eloquent verse, that breathes the very spirit of the sea in depicting the strife of the elements:

"From the depths of the waters that lighten and darken, With change everlasting of life and of death, Where hardly by morn if the lulled ear hearken It hears the sea's as a tired child's breath, Where hardly by night, if an eye dare scan it, The storm lets shipwreck be seen or heard, As the reefs to the waves and the foam to the granite Respond one merciless word.

"Sheer seen and far, in the sea's life heaven, A sea-mew's flight from the wild sweet land, White plumed with foam, if the wind wake, seven Black helms, as of warriors that stir, not stand, From the depths that abide and the waves that environ Seven rocks rear heads that the midnight masks; And the strokes of the swords of the storm are as iron On the steel of the wave-worn casques.

"Be night's dark word as the word of a wizard, Be the word of dawn as a god's glad word, Like heads of the spirits of darkness visored That see not for ever, nor ever have heard, These basnets, plumed as for fight or plumeless, Crowned by the storm and by storm discrowned, Keep word of the lists where the dead lie tombless And the tale of them is not found!"

Hither the boat had drifted in the course of the three days that had elapsed since she had been first becalmed off Spithead, or rather between the Nab and Warner lights; for, it was then that the wind had dropped, leaving her at the mercy of the stream, going whither the current willed.

She had pursued a most erratic course, however, to reach this point.

To commence with, she had floated on the ebb-tide, which for two hours after high-water runs south by west, out into the Channel past the Isle of Wight; the wind, slight as it was, that subsequently sprung up from the eastward, to which point it had veered after the sea-fog had risen, combined with the westward action of the tideway, making the little vessel take almost a straight course across the stream of the current towards the French coast.

When about midway, however, she got into a second channel current, which swept her nearer and nearer to Cape La Hogue.

Then, again, when still some miles out from the land, yet another current took charge of her, bringing her within the influence of the strong indraught which runs into the Gulf of Saint Malo; by which, finally, she was wafted, in a circular way, up to "the Caskets," or "Casquettes," to adopt the proper French version.

Here she had arrived at the time of Bob's delirium, drifting in closer and closer to the rocks, on which the cutter would probably have been dashed to pieces and her fragments possibly picked up anon on the opposite side of the Atlantic, had not fate intervened.

It was in this wise.

The little cutter drifted in near the rocks while it was still early morning; and the reason for the bell on the lighthouse ringing was because some of the mist, or fog, that had been blown across the Channel, yet lingered in the vicinity, as if loth to leave altogether the waters over which it loved to brood.

When, however, the rays of the bright morning sun sent this nightmare of a mist to the right-about, a small French fishing lugger might have been seen working out towards the offing from Saint Malo, giving the "Casquettes" a pretty wide berth you may be sure; those who have to do with seafaring matters across Channel knowing full well of the dangerous race that runs by the fatal rocks, ever seeking in its malice to engulph passing crafts and bear them away to destruction!

Two men were in the lugger; one, as usual, attending to the helm, the other minding the sheets and sitting midway between the bows and stern of the vessel, so as to be handy when required and thus save unnecessary locomotion.

Sailors, it may here be mentioned in confidence, especially those hailing from la belle France, never give themselves more trouble than they can help; which philosophic way of going through life might be studied to advantage, perhaps, by some shore folk!

These mariners, consequently, were taking it very easy, the one forward sitting on the break of the "fo'c's'le" and smoking a pipe, there not being much to do in the rope-hauling or letting go, as the lugger was only creeping lazily along through the almost still water with the aid of the light breeze then blowing.

Presently, this latter gentleman, casting a casual eye around, spied the poor mastless, derelict-looking little yacht, rolling about in the heavy tide-race that was taking her on to the rocks.

Instantly, sailor-like, he became all animation; taking his pipe out of his mouth and shouting out to his fellow-voyager astern with much gesticulation.

"Tiens, Jacques!" he cried, "voila un bateau qui courre sur les brisants!"

"Quoi?" carelessly asked the other. "Vous moquez vous!"

But the one who had first spoken repeated what he'd said, to the effect that there was "a boat drifting on the rocks, and likely to be wrecked." "Jacques," however, as his comrade had called him, did not seem much interested in the matter, merely shrugging his shoulders, implying that it was "none of his concern."

"C'est bien," said he. "Pas mon affaire."

The other, though, seemed more taken with the little craft, climbing up a couple of steps into the rigging in order to have a better look at her.

He had not gazed a moment when his excitement became intensified.

"Mon Dieu, Jacques!" he sang out. "Il-y-a quelqu'un a bord! Deux personnes, et des garcons je crois; mais, ils sont morts!"

"Pas possible," cried the helmsman, showing a little more interest. "Really?"

"Parbleu, c'est vrai! Vire que nous nous en approchions."

"C'est fait," exclaimed Jacques, now quite as much excited—as the other, and eager to rescue any one in peril or distress, as every sailor of every nationality always is—that is, a true sailor. "Starboard it is!"

"Babord!" cried out Antoine, as the helmsman called him, telling the latter he was to put the tiller over. "Port."

Jacques replied by a counter order.

"Toi, Antoine," shouted he, "lache la grande voile!" meaning him to "slacken off the mainsheets," whereupon the lugger was brought alongside the wreck of the cutter.

Our friend Antoine, without wasting a moment, at once stepped on board, exclaiming, "Tenez bon dessus—Hold on."

The man was shocked at what he saw, the dead bodies, as he thought, of Bob and Dick lying across each other on the floor of the little cabin, half in and half out of which the boys were exposed to his view at the first glance.

"Pauvres garcons!" he cried in a husky voice, wiping away a tear that sprang unbidden to his eye, with the characteristic ready emotional sympathy of his countrymen. "Pauvres garcons."

Jacques, who was a little longer in coming to inspect the derelict, hearing what his companion said, called out for further information.

"De quel pays sont-ils?" he asked. "Can you tell their nationality?"

"Anglais, sans doute!" was his reply. "Je le crois par leur air."

This made Jacques prick up his ears.

"Comment?" said he; and, without waiting to hear anything else he, too, jumped down into the boat. "Anglais? Mon Dieu!"

Jacques was a man of common-sense; so, instead of contenting himself with staring at the apparently lifeless boys, as Antoine did, he bent down to see whether they yet breathed.

"Bete! Quant aux enfants, ils ne sont pas plus morts que toi ou moi!" he sang out indignantly. "You fool! The boys are no more dead than you or me."

But Jacques was a kind-hearted man as well as one possessed of common- sense.

So, under his directions, he and Antoine between them transshipped the apparently lifeless but still animate forms of Bob and Dick from the wrecked cutter into the fo'c's'le of the lugger, where a charcoal, fire was smouldering in a small stove on which simmered a saucepan containing something savoury, judging by its smell.

Here Jacques proceeded to rub the bodies of the boys alternately with a piece of flannel dipped in spirit, which he first held in front of the stove to warm; Maitre Antoine, meanwhile, attending to the navigation of the lugger and guarding lest she should run upon the Casquettes, or get led astray out of her course by Alderney Race, a current of these regions which, like the Saint Malo stream, is not to be played with when the wind's on shore!

Not content with merely rubbing them down with the spirit, Jacques presently varied his external application of some brandy, a remedy with him for most complaints to which flesh is heir, by administering to each boy in turn a few drops internally of the spirit, forcing it dexterously between their lips as soon as respiration was restored and they began to breathe with some regularity; Bob, however, progressing much more rapidly than Dick, whose pulse obstinately remained feeble and barely perceptible, while the author of all the mischief was nearly all right.

Bob opened his eyes almost as soon as he tasted the brandy.

"Where am I?" he stammered out, gazing round the little fo'c's'le of the lugger in wonder. "Where am I?"



CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.

JIM CRADDOCK.

"Ah, le petit bon homme vit encore!" cried Antoine, hearing the voice and bending over from his seat on the after-thwart, being anxious as to the condition of the patients to whom Jacques was ministering. "Donnez lui encore d'eau de vie, mon ami!"

Jacques thereupon repeated the dose of brandy to Bob, who closed his eyes again and leant back, the spirit and the sound of the strange language, with the queer surroundings that had met his gaze on looking round the fo'c's'le of the lugger, making him believe he was still in a dream.

"Where am I?" he presently repeated, rousing up again. "Where am I?"

"In France," replied Jacques in English as good as his own, smiling as he spoke. "At least, you're aboard a French vessel; and, that's as good as being in France!"

"But, you are English," replied Bob freely. "You are English, eh?"

"Yes, I'm English," answered the other. "But, you had better not talk now. Wait till after you've taken some nice soup which I've got cooking here that will put new strength into you, and then we'll tell each other all about ourselves."

He then left Bob to attend to Dick, whom it took considerably longer to bring round; although by administering a few drops of brandy at intervals, varied by an occasional spoonful every now and then of the savoury soup from the saucepan on the fire, which was really a regular French stew, Dick became ultimately, as Bob already was through the same regimen, much better—the poor boy now recovering his consciousness and being able to speak.

The two invalids were then put to bed comfortably in a couple of bunks on either side of the fo'c's'le; while the lugger, whose name, by the way, was the Jeanne d'Arc, reached over towards the English coast, to see what fishing she could get in those prohibited waters.

Late in the afternoon, Bob and Dick both woke up refreshed; when, each had another jorum of the savoury soup, which Bob said subsequently was the nicest thing, he believed, he had ever tasted in his life! The boys, then, feeling quite well, so to speak, went on to tell the kind sailors all about their adventures, Bob, of course, being the principal spokesman.

"Ah!" observed Jacques. "You are living at Portsmouth, then?"

"No, I've only been stopping there for the season," replied Bob. "But, I like it very much!"

"It's my native place, sir. I was born there!" cried Jacques. "My father was in the English navy; and my old mother, who is yet alive, has a house of her own in the town! It's only through my having married a French wife that has took me over here along with the Parlyvoos!"

"How strange!" exclaimed Bob. "Why, we went to see only the other day a Mrs Craddock, who has a daughter who's very ill, that my aunt Polly goes to see; and she told us she had a son married to a French girl and he was living at Saint Malo!"

"Why, that's me!" cried Jacques; although "Jacques" no longer to us. "I'm Jim Craddock, and the old lady that you saw is my mother! My word! this is a rum start!"

After the curious coincidence of Bob and Dick being rescued by the son of "the old egg-woman," as they always called her, between whom and themselves Rover had in the original instance scraped an acquaintance, nothing would content Jim Craddock but that he must bear up at once for Portsmouth, and restore Bob and Dick to those who bewailed them as lost, as well as return the battered little yacht, which the lugger had in tow astern, to her proper owner.

The meeting between Bob and his parents is too sacred a matter to touch upon here; but, it is easy enough to imagine the delight of those welcoming one coming back to them as it were from the dead; Dick, too, being received like another son.

As for Nellie, her joy was so great at beholding again her brother Bob, whom she loved so dearly, that she laughed till she cried and then fainted; while, on her recovery, she laughed and cried again, though she did not faint a second time!

But, you should only have seen Rover when he saw his young master.

Sarah, "the good Sarah," said that she would never forget "the way in which that there dog went on as long as she lived!"

Of course, it can be well understood that there were no ill-feelings between Bob and the retriever anent the desertion of the latter from the cutter on the day of the boys' terribly punished escapade; though, the mystery of the dog's swimming ashore so strangely on that memorable occasion, it may be mentioned here, was never cleared up!

The Captain, it must be said, behaved much more unconcernedly than Rover.

"By Jove! I told you they'd turn up all right!" said he, chuckling away at such a rate that he could hardly stop to get out the next words. "I always told you so, didn't I ma'am—now, didn't I?"

"My gracious goodness, Cap'en Dresser, why you were the first to give them up!" cried Mrs Gilmour laughing. "Sure, I never did see such a man!"

At this the Captain chuckled still more; and he then told Dick, whom every one was as glad almost to see amongst them again as they were to see Bob, that he intended, when he got strong enough, to send him into the navy so as to prevent him from going to sea again!

After a few days' rest, in order to recuperate from the effects of the strain on all their nerves, Bob's father said they must all go back to town, their holiday limit being at length reached.

Bob and Nellie, on this intimation, began a round of leave-taking which would well-nigh have consumed another long holiday, to have been carried out in accordance with their intention; for they wanted to say "good- bye!" to all their favourite haunts and many acquaintances of the animate and inanimate world in turn.

Yes, they must see once more the halcyon spot where they caught the Pandalus, that gem of their aquarium; they had to bid adieu to Mrs Craddock's cottage, and the old lady herself and daughter; and again inspect the place where the unfortunate Bembridge Belle was wrecked.

They had to give a handshake, too, to their friend Hellyer—and all his fellow-coastguardsmen; besides having to go over the Captain's yacht, which had been sparred and rigged anew, the little Zephyr looking now "as fresh as paint again" after her eventful vicissitudes adrift in the Channel.

Aye, they paid farewell visits to every one and everything, and then wanted to begin over again, it was so hard to part with them all!

At last, however, the ordeal was accomplished; and all their goods and chattels and new acquisitions, especially the aquarium and its various occupants, that terrible Mesembryanthemum included, being properly packed up and labelled, behold the party one fine morning at the railway-station on their way to London as soon as the train should start!

Here Rover, despite his frantic howls on escaping his former prison, was snugly incarcerated in the guard's van; when the others, after exchanging last words with Mrs Gilmour and the Captain, entered a saloon-carriage which had been reserved for them for the journey, Bob and Nell, it may be taken for granted, being the last to get in, loth to leave "aunt Polly" and "that dear old sailor" who had won their hearts, as well as say "good-bye" to Dick, the whilom uninvited guest of their first eventful journey "Down the line," and subsequent faithful companion of Bob in his wonderful adventures by sea and land.



CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.

A LAST WORD.

There was a warning shriek from the engine's steam-whistle, as if it were impatient to be off, and angrily wanting to know why it was kept thus unnecessarily waiting.

Following up the scream of the whistle came the last cling! clang! of the railway-porter's bell, telling belated passengers that "time" was "up."

Next ensued the scrambling and scurrying of the aforesaid belated passengers, who always appear to put off making up their minds as to whether they shall start or not until the last moment of grace has expired.

Then, finally, after much clanging of doors upon the backs of those thus nearly left behind, with a snort of indignation and defiance of things in general, and late passengers in particular, the panting, puffing, fuming iron horse metaphorically and practically "put his shoulder to the wheel," lugging the rolling, rumbling, heavy train out of the station Londonwards, with a "puff-puff, pant-pant!" from his hoarse throat, answered by the groans and creaks of sympathy from the laden carriages and the clinking rattle of the coupling-chains, as they drew taut from the tension, lending a sort of cymbal-like accompaniment to the noisy chorus.

Bob and Nellie watched their aunt and the Captain standing on the platform, waving their handkerchiefs from the window of their compartment, which they found it a hard matter to shove their heads through two at a time, until a bend in the line swept aunt Pollys Captain Dresser, platform and all out of sight.

Then, sitting down disconsolately in their seats, Bob, who, of course, thought it unmanly to cry, screwed himself up in a corner in default of that alleviation of his misery, looking the very picture of woe; while poor Nell, being a girl and freed from such Spartan obligations, sought refuge from her sorrow in silent tears.

"Now, Nellie dear," said her mother reprovingly, "you mustn't be so foolish! Of course, I can make allowance for your sorrow at leaving Southsea, where you have been so happy; but these partings, dearie, will come some time or other, and, besides, you know, both aunt Polly and Captain Dresser have promised to come up to us at Christmas, so you'll see them again soon."

This made poor Nell try to compose herself; and presently she smiled through her tears, exchanging reminiscences of the past few weeks of their enjoyment by the sea with Bob, who also, after a time, shook off his grumpiness—the feeling that they were going "home" again, by and by overcoming their depression at leaving, perhaps for ever, the scene of so many delights and such a terrible ordeal at the last!

"I wonder how old Blinkie will look?" said Bob, trying to picture the jackdaw as he would appear when conscious of his owner's return; and then, deciding in his own mind that the only tribute of affection which he might expect would, most probably, be a sharp peck from Blinkie's beak, he added, "I dare say he won't remember me at all!"

Nellie's thoughts were directed to Snuffles the asthmatic cat, her great pet; and she believed that highly-trained animal would not only know her again after her long absence, but would certainly express her satisfaction in a much more endearing manner, if not quite so touching or pointed!

Thus the two beguiled the tedium of their journey; and, such was their joy on the train's arrival in town at last, that no one would have believed them to be the same Bob and Nell who had given way so greatly to their grief on leaving the seaside!

Naturally, Rover's pleasure at being released from his temporary imprisonment in the guard's van could be easily accounted for; but, the way in which, when he got back to his old home, he walked deliberately to the bottom of the garden in perfect remembrance of the spot where he had buried his last bone before going away, showed that he, at least, did not forget so easily.

The dog's memory, too, was equally green concerning his old friends Snuffles and Blinkie, as that of his young master and mistress; for he so sniffed and snuffed Snuffles in his exuberance at seeing her again, that he seriously disarranged her fur, while he allowed the jackdaw to peck at his legs and even his nose, without the slightest attempt at retaliation!

Not long after their getting back, Bob and Nell had a great joke all to themselves.

Their father and mother were sending down an invalid chair for Mrs Craddock's daughter, one in which she could be taken out into the open- air—it was a thing for which the poor girl had always been longing, as aunt Polly managed to find out for them when they were thinking of what sort of return they could make for the kind way in which the old lady's son had rescued Bob, Jim himself refusing any recompense whatever, despite all the barrister's and Captain Dresser's efforts.

So, this parcel being about to be dispatched "Down the line," Master Bob and Miss Nell bethought them that they would send a present too; not only to Dick, who was always in their minds, but one also for—whom do you think?

Why, for Sarah, "the good Sarah!"

And, what do you think the present was, eh?

You would never guess.

Well, a nice little loaf of bread and an ounce packet of the best black tea, both packed up in a very pretty box that also contained a remarkably smart cap, with ribbons of a colour such as the soul of Sarah loved.

Nor was this all,

On the lid of the box was an elaborate device in hieroglyphic characters, which could be readily understood when properly explained by the young designers, detailing the leading incidents of a celebrated picnic in the woods which once occurred; although, possibly the uninitiated might experience some little difficulty at first in discriminating between what were meant for the figures of the principal personages of the story and the objects of still life depicted in the drawing, though otherwise it was an admirable work of art.

Regarding the copy of verses also pinned on to the box, which the device in question was intended to illustrate, there could be no mistake; the verses, indeed, being a replica of an original poem, preserved in the Bobo-Nellonian archives and entitled, "Sarah's forget-me-nots," wherewith the reader has been already made acquainted.

The parcel was duly dispatched down to Southsea; but, though Nellie subsequently wrote a nice little letter to the Captain in her own nice handwriting, large and legible, such as the old sailor could read comfortably without spectacles, wherein she mentioned all the latest news of her aquarium tenants, telling how the hermit crab had distrained for his rent on a young lobster who had cast-off his shell, and that a small skate objected to the ice, she could learn nothing of how "the good Sarah" received her present.

Nor could Bob gain any information on the subject from aunt Polly, to whom he sent a long epistle bearing on the same momentous theme.

Both had to wait to have their curiosity satisfied until their aunt Polly and Captain Dresser came up to London at Christmastide; when at length the two of them managed to worm the secret out of the Captain.

The old sailor had been giving them all the news about those they had known down at Southsea; how Dick had at last been accepted for the navy and entered as a second-class boy on board the Saint Vincent, being bound to make a full able-bodied sailor in time; and how Hellyer had got a little pension in addition to his pay, as he was now "chief officer" of the coastguard; after which, the Captain at last referred to Sarah, "the good Sarah!"

"By Jove!" said he, "I shall never forget that night your box came! I was playing cribbage with your aunt Polly—and she cheated me, too, by the same token, in the fuss that occurred on opening the parcel, by scoring 'two for his heels,' when it only should have been 'one for his nob.' You never saw such a disgraceful thing done in your life, really a most barefaced piece of cheating!"

"Oh!" exclaimed Mrs Gilmour. "Sure, I'm listening to all those stories you are telling! Won't I pay you out, too, by and by, when you come round to 'the Moorings' again. You just wait and see!"

"I assure you, ma'am, it's a fact," persisted the Captain unblushingly, his little eyes blinking with fun under his bushy eyebrows, which were going up and down at a fine rate, I can tell you. "I saw you move the pegs, ma'am, when you thought I wasn't looking!"

"But, what did Sarah say?" asked Nellie, clinging to the old sailor and trying to attract his attention to the point at issue, from which he seemed sadly inclined to stray. "What did the good Sarah say?"

"Eh?" said he, cocking his head on one side in his most bird-like fashion and pretending not to understand his questioner. "Eh?"

"Oh, do tell us!" cried Bob, catching hold of him by the other arm. "How did 'the good Sarah' look?"

"Why," chuckled the Captain, bringing down his old malacca cane with a thump on the floor. "Jolly, my boy, jolly!"

THE END.