back, and there can be no doubt that, profiting by their last lesson, the
Spaniards will have made Callao stronger than before. However, we will do
something which shall be worthy of us, though I fear that it will not be
the capture of Callao."

A few minutes later the admiral's gig was alongside, and the admiral, his
captain, and Stephen went ashore. Lady Cochrane greeted Stephen as warmly
and kindly as her husband had done, and the children were exuberant in
their delight at the return of their friend.

"He has a wonderful story to tell you, my dear," Lord Cochrane said. "It
has taken him more than three hours to give me the details, and you will
have a greater treat listening to them this evening than I shall have at
this state dinner."

"It was too bad, Don Estevan," one of his friends said to Stephen next
morning, "that the admiral should have taken you on shore with him
yesterday after you had been with him all the afternoon. We had been
looking forward to having you all to ourselves, and hearing your story.
You may imagine that we are all burning with curiosity to hear how it is
that you came back all alone in that curious craft astern, and, above all,
how you have brought with you this prize-money. All we have heard at
present is that the whole of the boat's crew that went with you are dead.
I promised the others that I would not ask any questions until our
morning's work was over, so that we could hear your story together."

"It is just as well not to tell it by driblets," Stephen said. "It is
really a long story, as it consists of a number of small things, and not
of any one special incident. It can hardly be cut as short as I should
like to cut it, for I am but a poor hand at a yarn."

After the usual work of exercising the men at making sail, preparing for
action, and gun and cutlass exercise had been performed, anchor again
cast, ropes coiled up, and everything in apple-pie order, the Chilian
officers rallied round Stephen, and, taking his seat on the breech of a
gun, he told them the story, but with a good deal less detail than he had
given to Lord Cochrane. This relation elicited the greatest admiration on
the part of his hearers. The fact that he and two others alone, and
without any tools save swords, should have built the stout little craft
astern, and that he should, single-handed, have sailed her some thirteen
or fourteen hundred miles was to them nothing short of marvellous. All
had, the afterno