rous remark, Harry burst into
a loud fit of laughter, and handing the tar his glass, he sang out
"Sankoty light, ahoy!" which brought all hands on deck in an instant,
rubbing open their eyes, (for it was but the second watch in the
morning,) to catch sight of the first object visible of their homes.

"Three cheers for old Nantucket, and young Grosvenor!" shouted the
captain; and the ready huzza which went up, amid the waving of sundry
flannel shirts, old boots, and forsaken tarpaulins, which had been
caught up by the unshorn tars, as the sound of their near proximity to
home aroused them from the dreamy visions thereof to the vivid
realities, were borne over the waters which separated them from thence,
deceiving the red-combed heralds of the day into the belief of an early
dawn, judging from the signs of recognition which met their approach, as
the first tinge of red lit up the eastern sky.

Nobly the good ship Nautilus bore down to the bar, setting heavily on
the water, and the good twenty-five hundred with which she was laden,
was no less weighty than the handfuls of silver which danced o'er the
minds of the glad sailor boys, as they neared their native shore. None
were more light-hearted at the prospect before them than Harry
Grosvenor; not that he had become weary of the sailor's life, for he
loved the ocean with the same free, wild love as when three years
before, it had beckoned his boyish heart to brave its perils; but his
joy, as the endeared objects of his home, one by one, welcomed him in
his fancy, was unbounded, and he could not realize that he should so
soon greet the dear ones who had been the subjects of his most precious
thoughts, through the many days which had separated them.

"Well, my boy," said Sampson, as he grasped Harry by the hand, "we've
sailed under a clear sky for the most of the time, and we've held
together about as good as the strongest, but there's no use in shedding
fresh water tears over it, for I'm thinking this'll not be your last
voyage, and as for me, there's nothing to hinder my hanging around this
little sand-heap a bit longer; and who knows but we may try it again
some day. Who knows? ah, who knows that John Sampson is not lying at
this moment at the bottom of the sea? Who is there that cares to know?"

"This, I know, is not your home, Mr. Sampson; but have you not one
friend? is there no spot in the wide world which is dear to you? is
there not one who will welcome you home?"