me,
affably--although he didn't offer to shake hands, some distance lying
between the position of a skipper and an apprentice. "You're lucky to
be just in time, though, for we're all ready to sail as soon as the tide
serves for us to cross the outer bar and be off. Got all the papers
ready, Mr Tompkins?"

"Yes, captain," replied the agent. "Here they are; Leigh and Mr
Pengelly have just signed them."

"All right then. If you'll come along with me over to the Marine
Superintendent's office," said Captain Billings, to us two, "we'll have
the signatures witnessed to these indenture articles; and then the
thing'll be all settled, and the boy can come aboard at once."

"Heave ahead, my hearty," replied Sam. "We're both ready and willing;"
and thereupon we all adjourned to the presence of the responsible
official of the port entrusted with the supervision of all matters
connected with the mercantile marine, in whose presence I was formally
bound apprentice to the captain of the _Esmeralda_.

These preliminaries duly arranged, Sam Pengelly had some further
dealings of a private nature with the captain and agent, in which the
chinking of gold coin had apparently a good deal to do; and then he and
I, at the skipper's invitation, taking our seats in a boat that was
lying by the side of the jetty started off for the _Esmeralda_, whither
Sam had previously directed one of the schooner's men to have my sea-
chest removed while we went on to the agent's.

Really, I could not explain the mingled feelings of hope, joy, pride,
and satisfaction, that had filled my breast at the thought that I was
really going to sea, and having the darling wish of my heart at last
gratified--my contentment much increased by my overhearing a whispered
comment of my new captain to Sam Pengelly, that I "wasn't a pigeon-toed
landsman, thank goodness!" He said he could see that from the manner in
which I put my feet on the side cleats, as I got out of the boat and
swung myself up to the gangway.

"Now at length," thought I, speaking of myself in Sam's fashion, as if I
were some other person--"Martin Leigh you are going afloat at last!"

And, although I was only an humble reefer in the merchant service, whose
spick-and-span uniform of blue serge and gold-banded cap had never yet
smelt salt water to christen them, I felt as proud on first stepping "on
board the _Esmeralda_" as Nelson must have done, when standing on the
quarter-deck of the _Victo