ad saved her life and Dick's, after refitting once more, set sail
upon its almost endless voyage. She stood on the breakwater at Ponta
Delgada, and watched the Harpoon drop past. The men recognized her and
cheered lustily, and Captain Thomas took off his hat; for the entire
ship's company, down to the cabin-boy, were head-over-heels in love with
Augusta; and the extraordinary offerings that they had made her on
parting, most of them connected in some way or other with that noble
animal the whale, sufficed to fill a good-sized packing-case. Augusta
waved her handkerchief to them in answer; but she could not see much of
them, because her eyes were full of tears. She had had quite enough of
the Harpoon, and yet she was loth so say farewell to her; for her days on
board had in many respects been restful and happy ones; they had given
her space and time to brace herself up before she plunged once more into
the struggle of active life. Besides, she had throughout been treated
with that unvarying kindness and consideration for which the American
people are justly noted in their dealings with all persons in misfortune.

But Augusta was not the only person who with sorrow watched the departure
of the Harpoon. First, there was little Dick, who had acquired a fine
Yankee drawl, and grown quite half an inch on board of her, and who
fairly howled when his particular friend, a remarkably fierce and
grisly-looking boatswain, brought him as a parting offering a large
whale's tooth, patiently carved by himself with a spirited picture of
their rescue on Kerguelen Land. Then there was Mrs. Thomas herself. When
they finally reached the island of St. Michael, in the Azores, Augusta
had offered to pay fifty pounds, being half of the hundred sovereigns
given to her by Mr. Meeson, to Captain Thomas as a passage fee, knowing
that he was by no moans overburdened with the goods of this world. But he
stoutly declined to touch a farthing, saying that it would be unlucky to
take money from a castaway. Augusta as stoutly insisted; and, finally, a
compromise was come to. Mrs. Thomas was anxious, being seized with that
acute species of home-sickness from which Suffolk people are no more
exempt than other folk, to visit the land where she was born and the
people midst whom she was bred up. But this she could not well afford to
do. Therefore, Augusta's proffered fifty pounds was appropriated to this
purpose, and Mrs. Thomas stopped with Augusta at Ponta De