her, and then in a
loud voice said--

"Here's health and success to Sydney Belton--middy, master's mate,
lieutenant, commander, post--captain, admiral."

"Hear! hear!" cried Captain Belton; and Sydney sat feeling more guilty
than ever he had felt in his life.

For his brain was full of thoughts that he dared not have laid bare, and
his inclination was trying to drag down the balance in which he felt
that he hung.

As he sat there holding on tightly by the nut-crackers that he had not
used, he felt as if he should have to answer all manner of questions
directly, and be put through a terrible ordeal; but to his intense
relief, the conversation turned upon an expedition to Portobello, and
the way in which certain ships had been handled, the unfortunate
officers in command not having done their duty to the satisfaction of
the admiral. And as this argument seemed to grow more exciting the boy
softly slipped from his chair and went out again to his place of
meditation--the garden.

"Shall I--shan't I?" he said to himself. Should he make a bold dash,
and go off like heroes he had read of before, seeking his fortune
anywhere?

He was quite ready to do this, but in a misty way it seemed to him that
there would be no fortune to be found; and in addition, it would be
going in direct opposition to his father's and uncle's wishes, and they
would never forgive him.

"No," he said, as he walked up and down the broad walk nearest the road,
"I must give up and go to sea."

But even as he said this softly, he felt so much on the balance, that he
knew that a very little would send him away.

That very little came unexpectedly, for as he walked on down the garden
in the darkness, where the short sturdy oak-trees sent their branches
over the path on one side, and overhung the road on the other, a voice
whispered his name--

"Master Syd!"

"Yes. What is it?"

"Hush! Don't make such a row, or they'll hear you."

"Who is it--Pan?"

"Yes, Master Syd."

"Where are you?"

"Sittin' straddlin' on this here big bough."

"You've come back then, sir. Your father thought you had run away,"
said Syd sternly.

"So I have; and I arn't come back, on'y to see you, Master Syd."

"Come down, then. What are you doing up that tree?"

"On'y waiting to talk to you."

"But your father says he is going to rope's-end you for running away."

"No, he isn't going to, because I shan't come back."

"But you are back."

"Oh no, I a