en I bade adieu, as I feared for ever, to the island. On
coming opposite the Water Garden, I put the helm hard down. The schooner
came round with a rapid, graceful bend, and lost way just opposite the
bower. Running forward, I let go the anchor, caught up the red-hot
poker, applied it to the brass gun, and the mountains with a _bang_, such
as had only once before broke their slumbering echoes!

Effective although it was, however, it was scarcely equal to the bang
with which, instantly after, Peterkin bounded from the bower, in scanty
costume, his eye-balls starting from his head with surprise and terror.
One gaze he gave, one yell, and then fled into the bushes like a wild
cat. The next moment Jack went through exactly the same performance, the
only difference being, that his movements were less like those of Jack-in-
the-box, though not less vigorous and rapid than those of Peterkin.

"Hallo!" I shouted, almost mad with joy, "what, ho! Peterkin! Jack!
hallo! it's me!"

My shout was just in time to arrest them. They halted and turned round,
and, the instant I repeated the cry, I saw that they recognised my voice,
by both of them running at full speed towards the beach. I could no
longer contain myself. Throwing off my jacket, I jumped overboard at the
same moment that Jack bounded into the sea. In another moment we met in
deep water, clasped each other round the neck, and sank, as a matter of
course, to the bottom! We were well-nigh choked, and instantly struggled
to the surface, where Peterkin was spluttering about like a wounded duck,
laughing and crying by turns, and choking himself with salt water!

It would be impossible to convey to my reader, by description, an
adequate conception of the scene that followed my landing on the beach,
as we stood embracing each other indiscriminately in our dripping
garments, and giving utterance to incoherent rhapsodies, mingled with
wild shouts. It can be more easily imagined than described, so I will
draw a curtain over this part of my history, and carry the reader forward
over an interval of three days.

During the greater part of that period Peterkin did nothing but roast
pigs, taro, and bread-fruit, and ply me with plantains, plums, potatoes,
and cocoa-nuts, while I related to him and Jack the terrible and
wonderful adventures I had gone through since we last met. After I had
finished the account, they made me go all over it again; and, when I had
concluded the