out of the usual track of commerce, because of the privateers
and other pests of war waylaying it, they met no sail of either friend
or foe until they cast anchor at St. Jago. Here there was no ship bound
for England, and little chance of finding one, for weeks or perhaps for
months to come. The best chance of getting home lay clearly in going yet
further away from home, and so he stuck to the good ship still, and they
weighed for the Cape on the 12th of May. Everything set against poor
Scuddy--wind, and wave, and the power of man. It had been the 16th of
April when he was rescued from the devouring sea; some days had been
spent by the leisurely Dutchman in providing fresh supplies, and the
stout bark's favourite maxim seemed to be, "the more haste the less
speed." Baffling winds and a dead calm helped to second this philosophy,
and the first week of June was past before they swung to their moorings
in Table Bay.

"What chance is there now of my doing any good?" the young Englishman
asked himself, bitterly. "This place is again in the hands of the Dutch,
and the English ships stand clear of it, or only receive supplies by
stealth. I am friendless here, I am penniless; and worst of all, if I
even get a passage home, there will be no home left. Too late! too late!
What use is there in striving?"

Tears stood in his blue eyes, which were gentle as a lady's; and his
forehead (usually calm and smooth and ready for the flicker of a very
pleasant smile) was as grave and determined as the brow of Caryl Carne.
Captain Van Oort would have lent him 500 guilders with the greatest
pleasure, but Scudamore would not take more than fifty, to support him
until he could obtain a ship. Then with hearty good-will, and life-long
faith in each other, the two men parted, and Scudamore's heart was
uncommonly low--for a substance that was not a "Jack-in-the-box"--as he
watched from the shore the slow fading into dream-land of the Katterina.

Nothing except patriotic feeling may justify a man, who has done no
harm, in long-continued misery. The sense of violent bodily pain, or of
perpetual misfortune, or of the baseness of all in whom he trusted, and
other steady influx of many-fountained sorrow, may wear him for a time,
and even fetch his spirit lower than the more vicarious woe can do. But
the firm conviction that the family of man to which one belongs, and
is proud of belonging, has fallen into the hands of traitors, eloquent
liars, and vi