shore, I obtained leave to accompany him, upon condition that I reported myself on board again by eight o'clock. I therefore again, and for the last time during that cruise, dined with my father, after which he accompanied me to the Hard, bade me a most affectionate good-bye, and stood watching the wherry which was conveying me off to the ship, until the boat passed out of the harbour and we vanished from his sight. Not until long afterward did I know that, instead of starting for home the next morning, as he had talked of doing, he crossed over to Gosport the first thing after breakfast, walked to Haslar, and stationed himself on the beach at Gilkicker Point, watching the frigate until she had got under way and passed out of sight to the southward and eastward. The next morning, at daylight, Blue Peter was hoisted at the fore-royal masthead and a gun fired as a signal that the ship was about to sail; boats were hoisted in and stowed, stock was brought alongside, and the order was given to clear the ship of strangers--sailors' wives and sweethearts who had come off to say a last good-bye, bumboat women who were making a final desperate effort to obtain a settlement of their accounts, and tradesmen of all kinds engaged upon the same errand or intent upon palming off upon the men otherwise unsaleable stock. Shortly after ten o'clock Captain Vavassour came on board, immediately after which the hands were piped to "up anchor"; and within half-an-hour we were under way and standing out toward Saint Helens, under all plain sail, before a light northerly breeze. We had not been under way a quarter of an hour before it became apparent to everybody on board that the _Europa_ was going to more than justify the exceedingly favourable opinion that we had already formed of her; for, light as was the wind, she slid through the water at a speed that fairly astonished us, her keen stem cleaving the short Channel surges cleanly and with very little noise or fuss, and leaving behind her a wake so smooth and so little disturbed that at a distance of a quarter of a mile it vanished altogether. And when, an hour or so later, having made a good offing, the skipper ordered her to be hauled to the wind on a taut bowline for a short time, to test her speed under those conditions, and then put her about, she went to windward and tacked like a yacht.