steamer, strained his eyes, gazing at the
dimly-lit stairs. As they steamed rapidly down the river his spirits
rose, and he said vaguely that something inside him seemed to tell him
that his trouble would not be in vain.

"There's two days yet," said Mr. Green. "I wish they was well over."

Captain Flower, who had secured a bed at the Three Sisters' Hotel in
Aldgate, was for widely different reasons wishing the same thing. His
idea was to waylay Fraser immediately after the marriage and obtain
Poppy's address, his natural vanity leading him to believe that Miss
Tipping would at once insist upon a change of bridegroom, if she heard
of his safety before the ceremony was performed. In these circumstances,
he had to control his impatience as best he could, and with a view to
preventing his safety becoming known too soon, postponed writing to his
uncle until the day before the wedding.

CHAPTER XXIV.

He posted his letter in the morning, and after a midday meal took train
to Seabridge, and here the reception of which he had dreamed for many
weary months, awaited him. The news of his escape had spread round the
town like wildfire, and he had hardly stepped out of the train before
the station-master was warmly shaking hands with him. The porters
followed suit, the only man who displayed any hesitation being the
porter from the lamp-room, who patted him on the back several times
before venturing. The centre of a little, enthusiastic knot of
fellow-townsmen, he could hardly get clear to receive the hearty grip of
Captain Barber, or the chaste salute with which Mrs. Barber inaugurated
her auntship; but he got free at last, and, taking an arm of each, set
off blithely down the road, escorted by neighbours.

As far as the cottage their journey was a veritable triumphal progress,
and it was some time before the adventuresome mariner was permitted to
go inside; but he got free at last, and Mrs. Barber, with a hazy idea of
the best way to treat a shipwrecked fellow-creature, however remote the
accident, placed before him a joint of cold beef and a quantity of hot
coffee. It was not until he had made a good meal and lit his pipe that
Uncle Barber, first quaffing a couple of glasses of ale to nerve himself
for harrowing details, requested him to begin at the beginning and go
right on.

His nephew complied, the tale which he had told Poppy serving him as far
as Riga; after which a slight collision off the Nore at night betwe