Willis the Pilot

CHAPTER XXVIII.

WILLIS PROVES THAT THE ON­LY WAY TO BE FREE IS TO GET SENT TO PRISON--AN ES­CAPE--A DIS­COV­ERY--PRO­MO­TIONS--SOM­NAM­BU­LISM.

Three weeks af­ter the events nar­rat­ed in the fore­go­ing chap­ter, the thrice-​res­cued pro­duce of Ocea­nia had been con­vert­ed in­to the cur­rent coin of the em­pire.

The greater por­tion of the pro­ceeds was placed at the dis­pos­al of Willis, to fa­cil­itate him in procur­ing the means of re­turn­ing to New Switzer­land. He--like con­nois­seurs who buy up seem­ing­ly worth­less pic­tures, be­cause they have de­tect­ed, or fan­cy they have de­tect­ed, some mas­ter­ly touch­es rarely found on mod­ern can­vas--had bought, not a ship, but the re­mains of what had once been one. This he ob­tained for al­most noth­ing, but he knew the val­ue of his pur­chase. The car­cass was re­fit­ted un­der his own eye, and, when it left the ship-​yard, looked as if it had been launched for the first time. The tim­bers were old; but the cab­ins and all the in­ter­nal fit­tings were new; a few sheets of cop­per and the paint-​brush ac­com­plished the rest. When the mast was fit­ted in, and the new sails bent, the lit­tle sloop looked as jaun­ty as a nau­tilus, and, ac­cord­ing to Willis him­self, was the smartest lit­tle craft that ev­er hoist­ed a union-​jack.

Whether the cap­tain and the mis­sion­ary still en­ter­tained the be­lief that the Pi­lot's wits had gone a wool-​gath­er­ing or not, cer­tain it is that they had fol­lowed his in­struc­tions, in so far as to re­lin­quish their pa­role, and thus to lose their per­son­al lib­er­ty. They were both se­cure­ly locked up in one of the rooms or cells of the old palace or cas­tle of Fran­cois I., which was then, and per­haps is still, used as the state prison of Havre de Grace. This for­tal­ice chiefly con­sists of a bat­tle­ment­ed round tow­er, sup­port­ed by strong bas­tions, and pierced, here and there, by small win­dows, strong­ly barred. The foot of the tow­er is bathed by the sea, which, as Willis af­ter­wards re­marked, was not on­ly a fa­vor grant­ed to the tow­er, but like­wise an obli­ga­tion con­ferred up­on them­selves.

When the Pi­lot's pur­chase had been com­plete­ly re­fit­ted, stores shipped, pa­pers ob­tained, and ev­ery req­ui­site made for the out­ward voy­age, the de­par­ture of the three ad­ven­tur­ers was an­nounced, and a crowd as­sem­bled on shore to see their ship leave the har­bor. She was towed out to the roads, where she lay tran­quil­ly mir­rored in the sea, ready to start the mo­ment her com­man­der stepped on board. Nei­ther Fritz nor Jack, how­ev­er, had yet com­plet­ed their prepa­ra­tions. For the mo­ment, there­fore, the ves­sel was left in charge of some French sea­men, whom Willis, how­ev­er, had tak­en care to en­gage on­ly for a short pe­ri­od.

Some­where about a week af­ter this, Fritz and Jack, in a small boat, paint­ed per­fect­ly black and manned by four stout row­ers, with muf­fled oars, were lurk­ing about the for­tal­ice al­ready men­tioned. The night was pitch dark, and there was no moon. The waves beat sul­len­ly on the foot of the tow­er and surged back up­on them­selves, like an en­raged en­emy mak­ing an abortive at­tempt to storm the walls of a town. Not a word was ut­tered, and the young men were in­tent­ly lis­ten­ing, as if ex­pect­ing to hear some pre­con­cert­ed sig­nal.

Mean­while, in one of the rooms or cells of the round tow­er, about six­ty feet above the lev­el of the sea, Cap­tain Lit­tle­stone, the mis­sion­ary, and the Pi­lot were en­gaged in a whis­pered con­ver­sa­tion, through which might be de­tect­ed the dull sound of an oiled file work­ing against iron. The cell was am­ple in size, but the stone walls were with­out cov­er­ing of any kind. It was light­ed dur­ing the day by one of the aper­tures we have al­ready de­scribed; the thick­ness of the walls did not per­mit the rays of the sun to pen­etrate to the in­te­ri­or, and at the time of which we speak the apart­ment was per­fect­ly dark.

“I should like to see the warder,” whis­pered Willis, “when he comes, with his bun­dle of keys and his night-​cap in his hand, to wish your hon­ors good morn­ing, but, in point of fact, to see whether your hon­ors are in safe cus­tody. How as­ton­ished the old ras­cal will be! Ho, ho, ho!”

“My good fel­low,” said the mis­sion­ary, “it is scarce­ly time to laugh yet. It is just pos­si­ble we may es­cape; but vain boast­ing is in no case de­serv­ing of ap­pro­ba­tion. It is, in­deed, scarce­ly con­sis­tent with the dig­ni­ty of my cloth to be en­gaged in break­ing out of a prison; still, I am a man of peace, and not a man of war.”

“No,” said Willis, “you are not; but I wish to good­ness you were a sev­en­ty-​four--un­der the right col­ors, of course.”

“I was go­ing to re­mark,” con­tin­ued the mis­sion­ary, “that I am a man of peace, and, con­se­quent­ly, do not think that I am just­ly en­ti­tled to be treat­ed as a pris­on­er of war. Un­der these cir­cum­stances, I am, no doubt, jus­ti­fied in shak­ing off my bonds in any way that is open to me; the more par­tic­ular­ly as the apos­tle Paul was once res­cued from bondage in a sim­ilar way.”

“He was let down from a win­dow in a bas­ket, was he not?”

“Yes; whilst jour­ney­ing in the city of Dam­as­cus, the gov­er­nor, whose name was Ave­tas re­solved to ar­rest him and ac­cord­ing­ly placed sen­tries at all the gates. Paul, how­ev­er was per­mit­ted to pass through a house, the win­dows of which over­hung the walls of the town, whence, as you say, he was let down in a bas­ket, and es­caped.”[J]

“I trust your rev­er­ence will be in much the same po­si­tion as the apos­tle, by-​and-​by--on­ly you will have to dis­pense with the bas­ket,” said Willis.

“I have no wish to re­main in bondage longer than is ab­so­lute­ly nec­es­sary,” said the min­is­ter; “but there still seem dif­fi­cul­ties in the way.”

“Yes,” said Willis, ply­ing the file with re­dou­bled en­er­gy, “this iron gives me more both­er than I an­tic­ipat­ed; but it is the na­ture of iron to be hard; how­ev­er, it will not be long be­fore we are all out of bondage, as your rev­er­ence calls it.”

“May not the warder dis­cov­er our es­cape, and raise an alarm in time to re­take us?” in­quired the mis­sion­ary.

“No, I think not,” replied the cap­tain; “thanks to our habit of sleep­ing with our faces to the wall, he will be de­ceived by the dum­mies we have placed in the beds, for he al­ways ap­proach­es on tip-​toe not to awake us.”

“That may be for the first round; but the sec­ond will as­sured­ly dis­close our ab­sence.”

“Very like­ly,” re­marked Willis; “he will then go right up to the beds, and shake the dum­mies by the shoul­ders, and say, Does your hon­or not know that it is ten o'clock, and that your break­fast is cool­ing? The dum­mies will, of course, not con­de­scend to re­ply, and then--but what mat­ters? By that time we shall have shak­en out our top-​sail, and pur­suit will be out of the ques­tion. I should like to see the craft that will over­take us when once we are a cou­ple of miles ahead.”

“Poor man!” said the mis­sion­ary, sigh­ing; “our es­cape may, per­haps, cost him his place.”

“No fear of that,” said Willis; “per­haps, at first, he will make an at­tempt to tear his hair, but, as he wears a wig, that will not do much mis­chief.”

“I shall, how­ev­er, leave my purse on the ta­ble,” said the mis­sion­ary; “as it is tol­er­ably well filled, that may af­ford the poor fel­low some con­so­la­tion.”

“And I shall do the same,” said the cap­tain.

“If that does not con­sole him for be­ing de­prived of the plea­sure of our so­ci­ety, I do not know what will,” ob­served Willis.

“It is now two o'clock,” said the cap­tain, feel­ing his watch, “and the warder goes his first rounds at three; we have there­fore just one hour for our prepa­ra­tions.”

“I have sev­ered one bar,” said Willis, “and the oth­er is near­ly through at one end, so keep your minds per­fect­ly at ease.”

“Your pa­tience and equa­nim­ity, Willis, does you in­fi­nite cred­it,” said the mis­sion­ary. “Min­is­ter of the Gospel though I be, I fear that I do not pos­sess these qual­ities to the same ex­tent, for, to con­fess the truth, I feel an in­ward yearn­ing to be free, and yet am rest­less and anx­ious.”

“There is no great use in be­ing in a hur­ry,” said the Pi­lot; “the more haste the less speed, you know.”

“True; but might not these bars have been sawn through be­fore? If this had been done, our flight would have been, at least, less pre­cip­itate.”

“You for­get, Mr. Wol­ston,” said the cap­tain, “that we did not know till nine o'clock the af­fair was to come off to-​night.”

“And I could not come any soon­er to tell you,” re­marked the Pi­lot; “I had the great­est dif­fi­cul­ty in the world to get in here; the mar­itime com­mis­sary would not take me in­to cus­tody.”

“I for­got to ask you how you con­trived to get in­car­cer­at­ed,” ob­served the cap­tain; “you were not a pris­on­er, and could not plead your pa­role.”

“No; and con­se­quent­ly I had to plead some­thing else.”

“Willis,” said the mis­sion­ary, “the work you are en­gaged in must be very fa­tigu­ing, let me ex­er­cise my strength up­on the bars for a short time.”

“If you like, min­is­ter, but keep the file well oiled.”

“What, mo­tive, then, did you urge, Willis?” in­quired Cap­tain Lit­tle­stone.

"'Mr. Com­mis­sary,' said I, 'one of your frigates cap­tured the En­glish cut­ter _Nel­son_ some time ago, but the cap­ture was not com­plete.'

"'How so?' in­quired the com­mis­sary.

"'Be­cause, Mr. Com­mis­sary,' said I, 'you did not cap­ture the boatswain, and a British ship with­out a boatswain is no good; it is like a body with­out a soul.'

"'Is that all you have to tell me?' said the com­mis­sary, look­ing glum.

"'No,' said I, 'to make the cap­ture com­plete, you have still to ar­rest the boatswain, and here he is stand­ing be­fore you--I am the man; but hav­ing been de­tained by fam­ily af­fairs in the Pa­cif­ic Ocean, I could not sur­ren­der my­self any soon­er.'

"'And what do you want me to do with you?' said he.

"'Why, what you would have done with me had I been on board the _Nel­son_, to be sure.'

"'What! take you pris­on­er?'

"'Yes, com­mis­sary.'

"'You wish me to do so?'

"'Yes, cer­tain­ly,'

"'Is it pos­si­ble?'

"'Then you refuse to take me in­to cus­tody, Mr. Com­mis­sary?' said I.

"'Yes, pos­itive­ly,' said he; 'we take pris­on­ers, but we do not ac­cept them when of­fered.'

"'Then you will not al­low me to join my cap­tain in his ad­ver­si­ty?'

"'Your cap­tain is as great a fool as your­self,' said he; 'he need not have gone to prison un­less he liked.'

“'That was a mat­ter of taste on his part, Mr. Com­mis­sary, but is a mat­ter of du­ty on mine,'”

“This bar is near­ly through,” whis­pered the mis­sion­ary.

“There is no time to be lost,” said the cap­tain; “the warder will be round in a quar­ter of an hour.”

“Well,” con­tin­ued Willis, "the com­mis­sary be­gan to get an­gry, he rose up, and was about to leave the room, when I placed my­self res­olute­ly be­fore him.

"'Sir,' said I, 'one word more--you know the French laws; be good enough to tell me what crime will most sure­ly and most prompt­ly send me to prison.'

"'Oh, there are plen­ty of them,' said he, laugh­ing.

“'Well, com­mis­sary,' says I, 'sup­pose I knock you down here on the spot, will that do?”

“Was that not go­ing a lit­tle too far, Willis?”

“What could I do? The ship was all ready, ev­ery­body on board but your­selves, cir­cum­stances were press­ing, and you know I would have floored him as gen­tly as pos­si­ble.”

At this mo­ment the bar yield­ed. To the end of a piece of twine, which Willis had rolled round his body, a piece of stone was at­tached; this he let down till it touched the wa­ter, and then the caw of a crow rang through the air.

“That was a very good im­ita­tion, Willis,” said the cap­tain. “You did not break any of the com­mis­sary's bones, did you?”

“No; the threat was quite suf­fi­cient; he would not yield to my prayers, but he yield­ed to my im­pu­dence, and or­dered me in­to cus­tody. At first, how­ev­er, I was thrust in­to an un­der­ground cell; but I ob­tained, or rather my louis ob­tained for me, per­mis­sion to chum with you; and, by the way, what a fright­ful stair­case I had to mount! that more than any thing else, obliges us to get down by the win­dow.”

[Il­lus­tra­tion]

Willis, who con­tin­ued to hold one end of the cord, at the sound of a whis­tle drew it up, and found at­tached to the oth­er end a stout rope lad­der. This he made fast to the bars of the win­dow that still re­mained in­tact. At the re­quest of the min­is­ter, all three then fell up­on their knees and ut­tered a short prayer. Im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter, Wol­ston went out of the win­dow and be­gan to de­scend, the cap­tain fol­lowed, and Willis brought up the rear. All three were cau­tious­ly pro­gress­ing down­wards, when the mis­sion­ary called out he had for­got­ten to _for­get_ his purse.

“I have made the same omis­sion,” said the cap­tain; “hand yours up, Wol­ston.”

The mis­sion­ary ac­cord­ing­ly held up his with one hand whilst he held on the lad­der with the oth­er. The cap­tain bent down to take it, but found he could not reach it with­out en­dan­ger­ing his equi­lib­ri­um. They both made some des­per­ate ef­forts to ac­com­plish the feat, but the thing was im­pos­si­ble.

“I see no help for it,” said the mis­sion­ary, “but to as­cend all three again.”

“That is awk­ward,” said the cap­tain.

“Gen­tle­men,” said Willis, “three o'clock is strik­ing on the prison clock; the warder will be round in two min­utes.”

“God some­times per­mits good ac­tions to go _un­re­ward­ed_,” said the mis­sion­ary; “but he nev­er _pun­ish­es_ them.”

“Let us re-​as­cend, then,” said the cap­tain.

“So be it,” said Willis, go­ing up­wards.

They had scarce­ly time to re-​en­ter the cell be­fore they heard the sound of steps and the clank of keys in the cor­ri­dor. The steps dis­con­tin­ued at their door, and a key was thrust in­to the lock.

“What is the mat­ter?” cried the cap­tain from his bed, as the gaol­er thrust his head in­side the door.

“Why,” said the warder, “I heard a noise, and thought that your hon­or might be ill.”

“Thank you for your at­ten­tion, Am­broise,” replied the cap­tain, in a half sleepy tone; “but you have been de­ceived, we are all quite well.”

“En­tire­ly so,” added the mis­sion­ary.

“All right old fel­low!” cried Willis, with a yawn.

This triple af­fir­ma­tion, which as­sured him, not on­ly of the health, but al­so of the cus­tody of his pris­on­ers, seemed sat­is­fac­to­ry to the gaol­er.

“I am sor­ry to have awoke your hon­ors,” said he, as he with­drew his head and re­locked the door; “it must have been in the room over­head.”

“Good?” said Willis, “the old ras­cal ex­pects noth­ing.”

Two well-​lined purs­es were laid on the ta­ble, and in a few min­utes more the three men re­sumed their po­si­tion on the lad­der in the same or­der as be­fore. They ar­rived safe­ly in the boat, where they were cor­dial­ly wel­comed by Fritz and Jack. The men were then or­dered to pull for their lives to the ship, which they did with a hearty will. The in­stant they stepped on board the an­chor was weighed, and when morn­ing broke not a ves­tige of the old tow­er of Havre de Grace was any­where to be seen.

“Why,” ex­claimed the cap­tain, look­ing about him with an air of as­ton­ish­ment, “this is my own ves­sel!”

“Yes, cap­tain,” said Willis, touch­ing his cap, “and I am its boatswain or pi­lot, whichev­er your hon­or choos­es to call me.”

“But how did you ob­tain pos­ses­sion of her?”

“By right of pur­chase she be­longs to our friends, Mas­ters Fritz and Jack, but they have agreed to waive their claim, pro­vid­ing you pro­ceed with them to New Switzer­land.”

“I agree most will­ing­ly to these con­di­tions,” said Cap­tain Lit­tle­stone, ad­dress­ing the two broth­ers, “the more so that my des­ti­na­tion was Syd­ney when the _Nel­son_ was cap­tured.”

“In the mean­time, cap­tain,” said Fritz, “my broth­er and I have to re­quest that you will re­sume the com­mand, and treat us as pas­sen­gers.”

“Thank you, my friends, thank you. Willis, are all the old crew on board?”

“All that were in Havre, your hon­or; I com­mis­sioned Bill Stubbs to pick them up, and he man­aged to smug­gle them all on board.”

“Then pipe all hands on deck.”

“Aye, aye, cap­tain,” said Willis, sound­ing his whis­tle.

When the men were mus­tered, Lit­tle­stone made a short speech to them, told them that they would re­ceive pay for the time they had been in the en­emy's pow­er, and in­quired whether they were all will­ing to con­tin­ue the voy­age un­der his com­mand. This ques­tion was re­spond­ed to by a gen­er­al as­sent.

“Then,” he con­tin­ued, turn­ing to Willis, “the share you have had in the res­cue of the _Nel­son_ and its crew, con­joint­ly with my in­ter­est at the Ad­mi­ral­ty, will, I have not the slight­est doubt, ob­tain for you the well-​mer­it­ed rank of lieu­tenant of his Majesty's navy. I have, there­fore, to re­quest that you will as­sume that po­si­tion on board dur­ing the voy­age, un­til con­firmed by the ar­rival of your com­mis­sion.”

“Thank your hon­or,” said Willis, bow­ing.

“And now, lieu­tenant, you will be kind enough to rate William Stubbs on the books as boatswain.”

“Aye, aye, cap­tain,” said Willis, hand­ing his whis­tle to Bill.

“Pipe to break­fast,” said the cap­tain.

“Aye, aye, sir,” replied the new boatswain, sound­ing the whis­tle.

“By the way,” said Lit­tle­stone, turn­ing to Jack, “I do not see the sur­geon you spoke of on board. How is this?”

“He is on board for all that,” said Jack, draw­ing an of­fi­cial look­ing doc­ument out of his pock­et; “be kind enough to read that.”

The cap­tain ac­cord­ing­ly read as fol­lows:--

"_Havre, 15th Oc­to­ber, 1812._

"This is to cer­ti­fy that Mr. Jack Beck­er has, for some time, been a stu­dent in the hos­pi­tals of this town, and that he has suc­cess­ful­ly passed through a strin­gent ex­am­ina­tion as to his ac­quain­tance with the di­ag­no­sis and cure of var­ious dis­eases; as al­so as to his knowl­edge of the prac­tice of physic and surgery gen­er­al­ly.

"He has spe­cial­ly di­rect­ed his at­ten­tion to the treat­ment of can­cer, and has per­formed sev­er­al op­er­ations for the erad­ica­tion of that mal­ady to the sat­is­fac­tion of the sur­geon in chief and my own.

(Signed) “GARAY DE NEVRES, M.D., In­spec­tor of the Hos­pi­tals”.

This doc­ument was coun­ter­signed, sealed, and stamped by the may­or, the pre­fect, and oth­er au­thor­ities of the de­part­ment.

“How have you con­trived to ob­tain so sat­is­fac­to­ry a cer­tifi­cate in so short a pe­ri­od?” in­quired the cap­tain.

“I was in­tro­duced to the chief sur­geon by the med­ical man on board the _Boudeuse_. I stat­ed my po­si­tion to him, and, prob­ably, he threw fa­cil­ities in my way of ob­tain­ing the ob­ject I had in view that were, per­haps, rarely ac­cord­ed to oth­ers. All the cas­es of can­cer, for ex­am­ple, were placed un­der my care; I had, there­fore, an op­por­tu­ni­ty of ob­serv­ing a great many phas­es and va­ri­eties of that dis­ease.”

“Are you de­ter­mined to fol­low up the pro­fes­sion of surgery, then?”

“Yes, cap­tain; I have shipped a medicine chest on board, a com­plete as­sort­ment of in­stru­ments, and a col­lec­tion of En­glish, French, and Ger­man med­ical works. It is my in­ten­tion to make my­self thor­ough­ly fa­mil­iar with the the­ory of the sci­ence, and trust to chance for prac­tice.”

“Then al­low me, Mr. Beck­er, to rate you as sur­geon of the _Nel­son_ for the out­ward voy­age. Will you ac­cept the of­fice?”

“With plea­sure, Cap­tain; but, at the same time, I trust there will be no oc­ca­sion to ex­er­cise my skill.”

“No one can say what may hap­pen; dis­ease turns up where it is least ex­pect­ed. Lieu­tenant,” he added, turn­ing to Willis, “be kind enough to rate Mr. Beck­er on the ship's books as sur­geon.”

“Aye, Aye, sir.”

Mean­time the _Nel­son_ was mak­ing her way rapid­ly along the French coast, and had al­ready crossed the Bay of Bis­cay. The _Nel­son_ be­haved her­self ad­mirably, and took to her new gear with ex­cel­lent grace. All was go­ing mer­ri­ly as a mar­riage bell. They did not now run very much risk of cruis­ers, as Fritz had French pa­pers per­fect­ly _en re­gle_, and Cap­tain Lit­tle­stone would have had lit­tle dif­fi­cul­ty to prove his iden­ti­ty; be­sides, the speed of the _Nel­son_ was suf­fi­cient to se­cure their safe­ty in cas­es where dan­ger was to be ap­pre­hend­ed.

One night, about four bells (ten o'clock), when Willis was lazi­ly lolling in his ham­mock, doubt­less ru­mi­nat­ing on his new­ly-​ac­quired dig­ni­ty, his cab­in-​door grad­ual­ly opened, and the cap­tain en­tered. Willis stared at first, think­ing he might have some­thing im­por­tant to com­mu­ni­cate, but he on­ly mut­tered some­thing about a cloud gath­er­ing in the west. This was too much for Willis; it re­sem­bled his for­mer med­ita­tions so vivid­ly, that he leaped out of his ham­mock, seized Lit­tle­stone by the col­lar, and called loud­ly for Fritz and Jack.

“It is not very re­spect­full, cap­tain, to han­dle you in this way; but the case is ur­gent, and I should like to have the mys­tery cleared up.”

The two broth­ers, when they en­tered the cab­in, be­held Willis hold­ing the cap­tain tight­ly in his arms.

“I have caught him at last, you see,” said the Pi­lot.

“So it would ap­pear,” ob­served Jack; “but are you not aware the cap­tain is asleep?”

And so it was Lit­tle­stone had walked from his own cab­in to that of Willis in a state of som­nam­bu­lism.

“What is the mat­ter?” in­quired the lat­ter, when he be­came con­scious of his po­si­tion.

“Noth­ing is the mat­ter, cap­tain,” replied Jack, “on­ly you have been walk­ing in your sleep.”

“Ah--yes--it must be so!” ex­claimed Lit­tle­stone; gaz­ing about him with a trou­bled air. “Have I not paid you a vis­it of this kind be­fore, Willis?”

“Yes, of­ten.”

“Where?”

“On board the _Boudeuse_.”

“That must have been the craft I was trans­ferred to, then, af­ter the cap­ture of the _Nel­son_. Just call Mr. Wol­ston, and let us have the mat­ter ex­plained.”

On com­par­ing notes, it ap­peared that the cap­tain and the mis­sion­ary had been on board the _Boudeuse_. Both had been ill, and both had been close­ly con­fined to their cab­in dur­ing the en­tire voy­age, part­ly on ac­count of their be­ing pris­on­ers of war, and part­ly on ac­count of their ill­ness. On one oc­ca­sion, but on one on­ly, the cap­tain had es­caped from his cab­in dur­ing the night. Willis might, there­fore, have seen him once, but that he had seen him of­ten­er was on­ly a dream.

“It ap­pears, then,” said Lit­tle­stone, “that my ill­ness has left this un­for­tu­nate ten­den­cy to sleep-​walk­ing. I shall, there­fore, place my­self in your hands, Mas­ter Jack; per­haps you may be able to chase it away.”

“I will do my best, cap­tain; and I think I may ven­ture to promise a cure.”

Willis was sor­ry for the cap­tain's sleep­less­ness, but he was glad that the mys­tery hang­ing over them both had been so far cleared up. His vi­sions and dreams had been a source of con­stant an­noy­ance to him; but now that their ori­gin had been dis­cov­ered, he felt that hence­for­ward he might sleep in peace.

Af­ter a rapid run, the sloop cast an­chor off the Cape. Here Cap­tain Lit­tle­stone re­port­ed him­self to the com­man­der on the sta­tion, and re­ceived fresh pa­pers. He al­so sent off a despatch to the Lords of the Ad­mi­ral­ty, in which he re­port­ed the cap­ture and res­cue of his ship. He in­formed them that his own es­cape and that of the crew was en­tire­ly ow­ing to the tact and dar­ing of Willis, the boatswain, whom, in con­se­quence, he had nom­inat­ed his sec­ond in com­mand, _vice_ Lieu­tenant Dunsford, de­ceased; the ap­point­ment sub­ject, of course, to their lord­ship's ap­proval.

Willis wrote a long let­ter to his wife, in­form­ing her of his ex­pect­ed pro­mo­tion, adding that, in a year or so af­ter the re­ceipt of his com­mis­sion, he should re­tire on half-​pay, and then em­igrate to a de­light­ful coun­try, where he had been promised a vast es­tate. He said that, prob­ably, he should have an en­tire is­land to him­self, and pos­si­bly have the com­mand of the fleet; but he thought it as well to say noth­ing about tigers, sharks, and chim­panzees.

The mis­sion­ary al­so wrote to Eng­land, re­lin­quish­ing his charge in South Africa, and re­quest­ing a mis­sion amongst the be­night­ed in­hab­itants of the Pa­cif­ic Ocean, where he stat­ed he was de­sirous of set­tling for fam­ily rea­sons, and where be­sides, he said, he would have a wider and equal­ly in­ter­est­ing field for his labors.

The two broth­ers found at the Cape a large sum of mon­ey at their dis­pos­al; this, how­ev­er, they had now no im­me­di­ate use for; they, con­se­quent­ly, left it to await the ar­rival of Frank and Ernest, who, in all prob­abil­ity, would re­turn with the _Nel­son_.

The ar­range­ments made, the _Nel­son_ was ful­ly armed and manned, an am­ple sup­ply of stores and am­mu­ni­tion was shipped, the mails in Syd­ney were tak­en on board, and the sloop re­sumed her voy­age.

FOOT­NOTES:

[J] 2nd Cor., xi., 32.

CON­CLU­SION.

Three months af­ter leav­ing the Cape, the coast of New Switzer­land was tele­graphed from the mast head by Bill Stubbs. A gun was im­me­di­ate­ly fired, and to­wards evening the _Nel­son_ en­tered Safe­ty Bay. Fritz, Jack, Cap­tain Lit­tle­stone, the mis­sion­ary, and Willis, were all stand­ing on deck, ea­ger­ly scan­ning the shore.

“There is fa­ther!” cried Jack, “armed with a tele­scope; and now I see Frank and Mrs. Wol­ston.”

“There comes Mr. Wol­ston and Mas­ter Ernest,” cried Willis, “as usu­al, a lit­tle be­hind.”

“But I see noth­ing of my moth­er and the young ladies!” said Fritz.

“Very odd,” said Cap­tain Lit­tle­stone, sweep­ing the hori­zon with his glass “I can see noth­ing of them ei­ther.”

A hor­ri­ble ap­pre­hen­sion here glid­ed in­to the hearts of the young men. They knew well that, had their moth­er been able, she would have been the first to wel­come them home. Per­haps, un­der the in­spi­ra­tion of de­spair, their lips were open­ing to de­ny the mer­cy of that Prov­idence which had hith­er­to so re­mark­ably be­friend­ed them, when at a great dis­tance, and scarce­ly per­cep­ti­ble to the naked eye, they de­scried three fig­ures ad­vanc­ing slow­ly to­wards the shore.

One of these forms was Mrs. Beck­er, who was lean­ing up­on the arms of Mary and Sophia Wol­ston.

“God be thanked, we are still in time,” cried Fritz and Jack.

A loud cheer, led by Willis, then rent the air. Half an hour af­ter, the two young men leaped on shore; they did not stay to shake hands with their fa­ther and broth­ers, but ran on to where their moth­er stood. It was a long time be­fore they could ut­ter a syl­la­ble; the greet­ing of the moth­er and her chil­dren was too af­fec­tion­ate to be ex­pressed in words.

Next morn­ing, at day­break, prepa­ra­tions for a se­ri­ous op­er­ation were made in Mrs. Beck­er's room. The en­tire colony was in a state of in­tense ex­cite­ment, and an air of anx­iety was im­print­ed on ev­ery coun­te­nance. In the room it­self the wing of a fly could have been heard, so breath­less was the si­lence that pre­vailed. The pa­tient's eyes had been ban­daged, un­der pre­text of con­ceal­ing from her sight the sur­gi­cal in­stru­ments and prepa­ra­tions for the op­er­ation. The re­al de­sign, how­ev­er, was to hide the op­er­ator, whom Mrs. Beck­er sup­posed to be an ex­pert prac­ti­tion­er from Eu­rope; for it was not thought ad­vis­able that a moth­er's anx­ieties should be su­per­added to the pa­tient's suf­fer­ings.

At the mo­ment of tri­al the few per­sons present had sunk on their knees; Jack alone re­mained stand­ing at the bed­side of his moth­er. The Jack of the past had en­tire­ly dis­ap­peared; he was some­what pale, very grave, but col­lect­ed, firm, and res­olute. It was, per­haps, the first in­stance on record of a son be­ing called up­on to lac­er­ate the body of his moth­er. But the mo­ment that God im­posed such a task up­on one of His crea­tures, it is God him­self that be­comes the op­er­ator.

When, some days af­ter, Mrs. Beck­er--calm, ra­di­ant, and saved--re­quest­ed to see and thank her de­liv­er­er, it was Jack who pre­sent­ed him­self. If she had known this soon­er, it would, most un­doubt­ed­ly, have aug­ment­ed her ter­ror, and in­creased the fever. As it was, it re­dou­bled her thank­ful­ness, and has­tened her re­cov­ery.

Frank and Ernest em­barked on board the _Nel­son_ when she re­turned to New Switzer­land on her way to Eu­rope. Two years af­ter­wards, the for­mer re­turned in the ca­pac­ity of a min­is­ter of the Church of Eng­land, bring­ing with him a suf­fi­cient num­ber of men, wom­en, and chil­dren to fur­nish a re­spectable con­gre­ga­tion; and it was ru­mored, though with what de­gree of truth I will not ven­ture to say, that one of the young la­dy pas­sen­gers in the ship was his des­tined bride. Ernest re­mained some years in Eu­rope, part­ly to con­sol­idate re­la­tions be­tween the colony and the moth­er coun­try, and part­ly with a view to re­al­ize his pet project of es­tab­lish­ing an ob­ser­va­to­ry in New Switzer­land.

Willis, in­stead of be­ing sus­pend­ed at the yard-​arm as he had in­sist­ed on prog­nos­ti­cat­ing, re­ceived his lieu­tenan­cy in due course, ac­com­pa­nied by a high­ly flat­ter­ing let­ter from the Lords of the Ad­mi­ral­ty, thank­ing him, in the name of the cap­tain and crew of the _Nel­son_, for his ex­er­tions in their be­half. As soon, how­ev­er, as peace was pro­claimed, he re­tired on half-​pay, and, with his wife and daugh­ter, em­igrat­ed to Ocea­nia. He as­sumed his old post of ad­mi­ral on Shark's Is­land, where a com­modi­ous house had been erect­ed. We must premise, at the same time, that to his hon­orary du­ties as ad­mi­ral, con­joined the hum­bler, but not less use­ful, of­fices of light­house keep­er, man­ag­er of the fish­eries, and har­bor-​mas­ter.

As a coun­try grows rich, and ad­vances in pros­per­ity, it rarely, if ev­er, hap­pens that the sum of hu­man life be­comes hap­pi­er or bet­ter. It is, there­fore, not with­out re­gret we learn that gold has been dis­cov­ered in a land so high­ly fa­vored by na­ture in oth­er re­spects; for, if such be the case, then adieu to the peace and tran­quil­li­ty its in­hab­itants have hith­er­to en­joyed. The colony will soon be over­run with Chi­na­men, Amer­ican ad­ven­tur­ers, and tick­et-​of-​leave con­victs. Farewell to the kind­li­ness and hos­pi­tal­ity of the com­mu­ni­ty, for they will in­evitably be del­uged with the refuse of the old, and al­so, alas! of the new world.

THE END.

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