ir,
showed no inclination to leave him. Murray had held up wonderfully
during all the hardships he had undergone, and even after he came on
shore he was able for some time to go about, but a few days after this
the fever, which had been hovering about him, seized him. He would have
had to go to the hospital, but Mr Wilkie sent a litter for him, and had
him carried to his own house, and nursed him as if he had been his son.
Jack and Terence went there every day, and assisted in nursing him, but
for long he appeared to be hovering between life and death. Often his
two messmates left him with sad and sorrowing hearts, believing that
they might never see him again. At last he rallied, and seemed to be
getting better. Now they longed for a ship, because they hoped that
breathing again the pure sea air, unmixed with any exhalation from the
land, might restore him. He was at last able to accompany them about
the town.

Everybody will remember old Hobnail, the coloured boot and shoe-maker at
Freetown. What a jolly, good-natured, genial-hearted man he was! Every
naval officer was welcome at his shop, not because he wanted to make
customers of them, for it seemed all the same to him whether they bought
his boots and shoes, but really from his genuine kindliness of heart.
He had a little room, cool and at the same time airy, with the last
newspaper from England, and lemonade, or some other refreshing
beverages, and not unfrequently a cigar of a quality rarely to be
surpassed. Hobnail's shop, as may be supposed, was often visited by the
three midshipmen. They were good customers too, for Murray and Adair
had worn out their shoes before landing, and Jack very soon finished off
his with walking about.

The first ship which looked into the river was the _Ranger_ herself, and
as it was very important for Murray's health that he should get afloat,
Captain Lascelles carried him off, as well as his own two midshipmen,
with, of course, Queerface and the two parrots. The _Ranger_ went away
to the southward, where she cruised without much success. Those only
who have been long on the coast know what dreary work it often is, how
homesick many poor fellows become, how easily, when the coast fever gets
hold of them, the destroyer gains the victory. They had been some two
or three weeks at sea, when a man-of-war schooner fell in with them, and
handed a letter-bag from England, with some letters from Sierra Leone.
Murray got severa