Part 54 (1/2)

Raggy, rejoiced beyond measure, met them at the beach. He was not content with shaking hands with his old messmates; shaking hands was slow work.

Raggy must dance. And dance he did, a regular sailor's hornpipe.

”As sure as I'm alive, by Heaven's mercy,” said Nicholls, the bo's'n, ”I think I could dance a bit myself.”

”And so do I,” cried another sailor.

And they both joined Raggy.

It was as merry a hornpipe as ever was seen.

No wonder the king cried ”Lobo! Lobo!” and laughed till the tears gushed out of his eyes, or that the welkin rang with the admiring shouts of the st.u.r.dy amazons.

Then Raggy, who had reigned here so long and so well, resigned his regency, and in a day or two more all the old, quiet life had settled down upon the islands.

For a whole month longer Harry and his men lived with this innocent king; then, the strength of his men being now thoroughly recruited, they all said farewell to the good King Googagoo, with many regrets, and commenced the long and tedious march to the eastern coast, which they reached at last safe and sound, having met only the usual exciting adventures, and come through all the hards.h.i.+ps incidental to African travel.

Dear young readers, I have little more to do now, except to say ”Goodbye.” I sincerely trust that, while I do my best in my tales to interest and instruct you, no one can accuse me of painting the life of the sailor wanderer in too rosy colours. I speak and write from my own experience of sea-life and of other lands. And--yes, I will confess it, I love the sea, and ever did.

Here are some lines I wrote in a journal of mine many years ago:--

”While I write all is peace within and around our barque. I am sitting in my little cabin. It is a summer's evening. Yonder is my bed; the port-hole close by my snowy pillow is open, and playfully through it steals the soft cool breeze of evening, and wantonly lifts and flutters the blue silken curtains. Not far off I can catch glimpses of the wooded hills and flowery vales of a sunny land. It is the rosy sh.o.r.es of Persia, and every night the light wind that blows over it is laden with the sweet breath of its flowers; while between there lies the ocean, asleep, and quiet, and still, and beautiful with the tints of reflected clouds. Often in the cool night that succeeds a day of heat have I lain awake for hours, fanned by the breath of the sea, gazing on the watery world beneath and beyond me, and the silvery moon and glittering stars that waft my thoughts homewards, till sleep stole gently down on a moonbeam and wafted me away to dreamland.”

Thus I wrote when a young man. Thus I still do feel.

The first glimpse that one catches of the chalky sh.o.r.es of old England after a long cruise thrills every nerve in his heart with hope and joy.

To experience even this it is worth while going to sea.

Probably some such thoughts as these stole through the mind of Harry Milvaine as his homeward bound vessel came in sight of land.

His pa.s.sage had been a good one all the way from Zanzibar to the Cape, and from the Cape to Southampton.

If the thought of presenting himself at Beaufort Hall without first writing ever came into his head at all, it was speedily banished.

Pleasant surprises are very well under certain circ.u.mstances, but they may be so painfully pleasant as to be positively dangerous, for joy can kill as well as cure.

So Harry telegraphed and wrote, and waited anxiously for the return letter.

It came in good time.

With a beating heart he tore it open.

All were well. Even his old dog Eily was mentioned by his mother--for of course the letter was from her--in terms of affection.

”She knows you are coming,” she wrote, ”and whenever I mention your name rushes to the gate to look, and barks in a kind of half-joyful, half-hysterical way that is most peculiar.”

Harry is back in the Highlands at last. He has come a good two hours earlier than he expected. But he does not mind that He likes to walk slowly on towards the home of his boyhood. Every little cottage, every hill--the hills are all heather-clad, for the summer's bloom bedecks them--every wood, ay, every tree recalls some sweet memory of the bygone.

He is still within half a mile of Beaufort when he sees a dog.