hen we
sighted Flores; for, even if we had been given up, the news would now
soon be sent on that the old ship was still to the fore. So, when
Captain Miles had taken in fresh water and provisions, besides buying a
new chronometer, and then shaped a course direct for the English
Channel, I looked forward anxiously to relieving my parent's anxiety as
much as I did at the realisation of my boyhood's dream of seeing London
and going to school.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

DAD.

My tale will soon come to an end.

After leaving Santa Cruz, we had a fine steady wind from the north-west,
right on our quarter, all the way to the chops of the Channel; and this
enabled us to accomplish the intervening twelve hundred miles of
distance in ten days' time.

We were equally lucky in getting up to the river, although it was well
on in the month of October, when easterly winds generally prevail; for,
without requiring the assistance of a tug, after making the Lizard, we
passed up towards London in fine style, walking at a great rate by
Dunnose, Beachy Head, Dungeness, and all those other landmarks that
mariners know so well.

When we got to Gravesend, I had a great surprise; for, who on earth do
you think should come off to the ship as we anchored in the stream,
waiting for a pilot to take us up the river to the Saint Katherine's
Docks, where we were bound? The very last person in the world whom you
or I could possibly have expected to meet me there!

Who do you think?

Why, dad!

Yes--he; and none other.

It seems that shortly after I sailed in the _Josephine_, the gentleman
who had made him an offer to purchase Mount Pleasant when I was ill--and
then backed out of the bargain because dad would not immediately come to
terms--renewed the proposal, and dad accepted at once.

Then, as he had nothing remaining to keep him out in the West Indies, he
took passages in the next mail steamer home for my mother and my sisters
and himself, arriving over here even before I could have expected to
reach England had all gone well with our ship.

When they got to London, however, news came from Lloyd's that the
_Josephine_ was lost, as our boats, which had been swept away in the
hurricane, had been picked up by a homeward-bound ship.

Needless to say, dad and all my folk were heart-broken at hearing this.

Hardly, however, had they become reconciled to my death, as they
thought, than a fresh piece of intelligence was passed on from Flo