l
Navy having sold out the little property he had at home and capitalised
his pension with the object of settling in New Zealand, had now no
desire to return to England, or the means to live there if he had such a
wish.

Frank did not forget his engagement with Kate, however.

Although he was obliged to accompany Captain Dinks back to England, it
was not long after his arrival in London before he passed the Trinity
House Board, obtaining a certificate licensing him to act as chief mate,
in which capacity he went out to New Zealand on his very next voyage.

This will not be his last trip to the Antipodes either, for rumour has
it that, not improbably, Frank Harness, promoted to the rank of a master
in the mercantile marine, will proceed shortly again to Otago in command
of a ship of his own, when, possibly, he will have one especial item of
human freight to bring home with him on his own account!

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE.

THE LAST OF THE OLD SHIP!

There is one thing more to tell.

It all arises from the unpardonable stupidity of that donkey of a
steward, Llewellyn, who forgot the memorandum concerning the
circumstance and left it down below in the cabin--and that, too, in
spite of Ben Boltrope's telling him to be certain to bear it mind,
besides his wife, Mary, having continually jogged his memory on the
subject! Had it not been for this, the omission would never have
occurred, as the matter would have been mentioned in its proper place
some time ago.

Shortly after the _Matilda Ann_ set sail from the little whaling station
at Betsy Cove with the rescued castaways of Kerguelen Land on board, and
just as she was weathering the Cloudy Islands, as they are called--a
group of rocks that lie to the north-east of the mainland--the look-out
man in the fore cross-trees, who was keeping a keen watch for breakers,
the navigation at this point being rather ticklish on account of the
treacherous reefs and stray currents that wander about there, suddenly
shouted down to the man at the wheel to put the helm down, which of
course he immediately did.

"What is it?" called out the steersman, who happened to be the master of
the schooner himself. He noticed no sign of breakers anywhere near and
wondered at this sudden alteration of the vessel's course--"Where's the
reef?"

"'Tain't no reef, sir," sang out the man aloft in answer, "but I see
something like a man in the water."

"Man be hanged!" exclaimed the schooner's s