ful reunion, and the
first night I spent at home we all knelt down together and thanked God
for my deliverance.

"Mr. Mariner, I am glad to say, escaped from those dreadful islands
three years later, and reached England in safety. And so I come to the
end of this tale of a very strange and calamitous voyage, brought
about mainly through the obstinacy of the whaling-master of the
_Port-au-Prince_."

*****

"And now, Mr. Denison and Captain Packenham, as I think we shall never
meet again, I want you to be good to my boys, Tom and Sam, and warn them
both against the drink. It is kind, generous gentlemen like you who,
meaning no harm, send so many half-caste lads to hell."

THE ESCAPEE

One hot, steaming morning, a young man, named Harry Monk, was riding
along a desolate stretch of seashore on the coast of North Queensland,
looking for strayed cattle. He had slept, the previous evening, on the
grassy summit of a headland which overlooked the surrounding low-lying
country for many miles, and at dawn had been awakened by the lowing of
cattle at no great distance from his lonely camping-place, and knew
that he would probably discover the beasts he sought somewhere along the
banks of a tidal creek five miles distant. Although the sun was not yet
high the heat was intense, and his horse, even at a walking pace, was
already bathed in sweat. The country to his right was grim, brown,
forbidding, and treeless, save for an occasional clump of sandal-wood,
and devoid of animal life except the ever-hovering crows and a wandering
fish-eagle or two. To the left lay the long, long line of dark,
coarse-sanded beach, upon which the surf broke with violence as the
waves sped shoreward from the Great Barrier Reef, five leagues away.

The track along which the man was riding was soft and spongy sand,
permeated with crab-holes; and at last, taking pity on his labouring
horse, he dismounted, and led him. Half a mile distant, and right ahead,
a grey sandstone bluff rose sheer from the water's edge to a height of
fifty feet, its sides clothed with verdure of a sickly green. At the
back of this headland, Monk knew that he would find water in some native
wells, and could spell for an hour or so before starting on his quest
along the banks of the tidal creek.

It was with a feeling of intense relief that he at last gained the
bluff, and led his sweltering horse under an acacia-tree, which afforded
them both a welcome shade from the sti