_Esmeralda_ on his arrival home; and I may as well state here, that the
officials entirely exonerated him from any blame in the destruction of
the ship and cargo, putting the matter down to one of the ordinary risks
of commercial life.

The skipper also promised to see Sam Pengelly for me, and to tell him
how I was getting on. These mutual engagements being gone into, I and
Jorrocks, having shaken hands with Captain Billings and Mr Macdougall,
the latter of whom said he would "never forget me as long as he lived,"
were both making our way along the front of the one long street that
Valparaiso consists of, thinking of taking off a boat soon to our new
ship, the _Jackmal_, lying out in the offing--for Jorrocks, learning
that Captain Giles wanted a boatswain, and knowing that I was going with
him, agreed to go to sea with him in a moment--when, all at once, who
should we come full butt on but the very last person in the world I
expected to see here. I thought he was still at Dr Hellyer's, at
Beachampton, cramming for an Oxford scholarship, as far as I knew to the
contrary--who but--

Yes!--

Tom Larkyns, my old chum, who acted so wickedly in concert with me, when
we blew up the schoolmaster and ran away to sea!

His uncle, he told me, had a foreign agency here; and the old gentleman
having written home to his mother offering Tom a situation, he had at
once been sent out at his own wish, preferring such a life greatly to
that of going to the university and afterwards having to take holy
orders, that being the only opening held out to him in England.

Tom also related that the Doctor had become a bankrupt, and the school
broken up; but I was unable to hear anything further about the scene of
my past misdeeds and experiences of "pandying" and "way of his own" of
my former master, for while we were yet chatting together, Captain Giles
came up, saying he was going off to the _Jackmal_ at once, and would
like Jorrocks and myself to come on board with him, as he intended
sailing that afternoon.

So, wishing Tom good-bye, before many hours were over I was again
floating on the deep.

From Valparaiso, we sailed to Sydney; then, taking a cargo of all sorts
of "notions," as the Yankees say, we went on to Singapore; going thence
to Bombay, in ballast. From India we proceeded back again to Australia,
going to Melbourne this time; finally coming home to England, round the
Cape of Good Hope--a good two years after I joined my