ip again?"

"Oh, we fix a position," he replied, "and they'll keep it every day at
mid-day after ten days. Meanwhile we're running north out of the track
of the cruisers."

"I can't quite understand why the skipper takes me with him this time,"
I remarked, endeavouring to draw him, but he answered--

"No more can I; between ourselves, he's been half daft ever since you
came aboard. Do you know that the man's more fond of you, in his way,
than of any living thing? I know it. I'm the only man on the ship who
does know it, and why it is I can't tell you. I didn't think he was
capable of a human feeling."

"It's very good of him to waste so much affection on me," said I,
meaning to be derisive, but Osbart checked me.

"Don't laugh," he exclaimed; "you owe your life to him alone."

CHAPTER XXIII.

I GO TO LONDON.

It was a week after this conversation that Captain Black, Dr. Osbart,
and myself entered the 7.30 train from Ramsgate; leaving in the outer
harbour of that still quaint town the screw tender, now disguised, with
the man John and eight of the most turbulent among the crew of the
nameless ship aboard her. We had come without hindrance through the
crowded waters of the Channel; and, styling ourselves a Norwegian
whaler in ballast, had gained the difficult harbour without arousing
suspicion. At the first, Black had thought to leave me on the steamer;
but I, who had an insatiable longing to set foot ashore again, gave him
solemn word that I would not seek to quit him, that I would not in any
way betray him while the truce lasted, and that I would return,
wherever I was, to the tender in the harbour at the end of a week. He
concluded the conditions with the simple words, "I'm a big fool, but
you can come." The others opened their eyes and tapped their foreheads,
for they believed him to be a maniac.

I will not pause to tell you my own thoughts when I set foot on shore
again. So great was my amazement at it all that I went some time
without collecting myself to see that the invisible hand of God, which
had led me all through, was leading me again--even, as I hoped, to the
consummation of it. Fearless in this new thought, I sat in the corner
of the first-class carriage reserved for us in such a state of
exultation and of hope as few men can have known. Before me were the
downs of Kent, the open face of an English landscape, the orchard-bound
homesteads, the verdurous pasture-land. The hedges were bedeck