dark.

CHAPTER FIFTY THREE.

"HUZZA! WE'RE HOMEWARD BOUND."

And now it seemed as if our difficulties were at an end, for the passage
to Kingston, Jamaica, was a pleasant one, and we took our berths from
there in the mail, which landed us in safety at Southampton, without a
soul suspecting the nature of the treasure that we had on board, one
which we had gone through so much peril to obtain.

It was a fine evening in July, that, after leaving my uncle and the
others at a comfortable London hotel, Tom and I, after a quick run down
by rail, found ourselves once more in the streets of the little town
which we had left upon our setting off to foreign lands in quest of our
fortunes.

How familiar everything seemed and yet how shrunken! Houses that I used
to consider large appeared to have grown small, and people that I had
been in the habit of considering great and important, somehow looked as
if they were of no consequence at all.

"Lor', look ye there, Mas'r Harry, they're practising in the cricket
field. What a while it seems since I have handled a bat! Come and give
us a few balls, the chaps would be glad enough to see us."

"No, no, Tom," I said hastily, "I want to see the old people."

"Oh, yes, of course, I forgot all about that, Mas'r Harry. I haven't
got no one to see."

"Why, what about Sally?" I said.

"Pooh, it's all nonsense! What stuff! How you do talk, Mas'r Harry!"
he cried indignantly. "Just as if Sally was anything to me!"

"Come, Tom," I said, "you know you were always very great friends."

"Friends, Mas'r Harry! Why, she were allus giving me spanks in the
face. I do wish you wouldn't be so foolish, Mas'r Harry."

"All right, Tom," I said, for he was speaking in quite an ill-used tone.
"There, what's that?" I cried, as with beating heart, longing to look
into the old home and yet almost afraid, I stopped short at the corner
of the lane, and caught Tom by the arm.

"What's that?" cried Tom grinning, as he took a long sniff. "Taller.
Say, Mas'r Harry, after missing it all this long time, it don't smell so
very bad after all."

"Well, it is not nice, Tom," I said smiling, "but how familiar it all
does seem! What days and nights it does recall! Why, Tom, we hardly
seem to have been away."

"Oh, but don't we though?" said Tom, pulling down the front of a new
waistcoat and pushing his hat a little on one side. "We went away
nobodies like, at least I did, Mas'r Harry, and