we were
all beginning to believe she had gone down to "Davy Jones's locker" and
that we were never going to be relieved at all, when one fine morning,
as our hearts were getting sick within us, the ship was sighted in the
offing.

I don't think I can ever forget the excitement and enthusiasm aroused on
board as the news became known, and on her coming up with the sea breeze
at breakfast-time everybody seemed to go mad with joy, the officers
shaking hands with each other all round and the men crowding the rigging
and cheering the _Daphne_ as she passed up to her anchorage inside of
us.

That very same afternoon, being all ready and waiting, we sailed from
Singapore for the Cape, "homeward bound."

What a night that was down below in the gunroom.

Although it was not Saturday evening, when our weekly sing-song was
usually celebrated, youngsters and oldsters alike united with a common
impulse to have a general hullabaloo, their efforts resulting in such a
row as never had been heard, I believe, on board the old _Candahar_
before, and, I am equally positive, has not been equalled since, even
after she became a harbour ship and was reduced to her present condition
of "Receiving Hulk."

I can fancy I see the scene now before me as I write these last lines of
my yarn.

There were Larkyns and Ned Anstruther, both of whom, like myself, had
passed through the chrysalis stage of midshipmen and came within the
category of oldsters, the one with a banjo, and the other handling a
broken-down concertina, very wheezy about the gills; with little Tommy
Mills, who was only a "midshipmite" still, in every sense of the word,
accompanying them with a rattling refrain from a pair of ivory castanets
which he had purchased for a paper dollar in a curio shop at Canton.

All the rest of the fellows were shouting out at the pitch of their
voices, as only middies and mates and such-like fry can shout, the
chorus of the old sailors' song:--

"We'll rant and we'll roar like true British sailors,
We'll rant and we'll roar all on the salt seas,
Until we strike soundings in the Channel of Old England;
From Ushant to Scilly 'tis thirty-five leagues!"

Those on the deck above, however, did not wait until we had arrived "in
soundings"; for, just as the song was being repeated by acclamation for
the third time, the chorus getting louder and louder after each
repetition, Sergeant Macan, as he now was, having gained his extra
stripes soo