My relief turned up three days later, and that night they gave me a farewell dinner in the Wardroom. It was like all shows of the kind--a mixture of wild joviality and moments of sentiment, real or stimulated by the cup. I had to make a speech, of course, and altogether was not sorry when it was at last possible to escape to the Quarter Deck. I had given no reason for my abrupt departure from the ship, and I was conscious that I had succeeded in surrounding myself with a sort of glamour of mystery. Bunje (he was our First Lieutenant then) would have it that I was about to contract a matrimonial alliance with an exiled princess, and made a moving speech after dinner that was not in all its features fit for reproduction in these pages. The Young Doctor stoutly maintained that I had decided to embrace Holy Orders, and insisted on borrowing the Padre's cassock to wear while he outlined my probable career as a missionary in the valley of the Yangtse-Kiang. It was Thorogood who joined me on the Quarter Deck where I was finishing a final pipe before turning in, and he fell into step beside me, linking His arm in mine in the boyish, spontaneous manner in which his affectionate nature revealed itself. "We'll miss you awfully, Commander," he said. "You haven't seen the last of me yet, James," I replied. "No," he answered, "but you're off to-morrow, aren't you? And God knows when I'll see you again." "Hang it, why shouldn't I drop him a hint," I thought. If the flower of the Service was needed for this bloody business, then I'd choose Jimmy Thorogood amongst the bunch. "James," I said, "would you care to come with me to my next job?" He stopped short and stared at me through the darkness. "D'you mean it?" he cried. "By Jove! If I thought----" "Listen," I said. "Its a business that wants thinking over. It's a pretty risky affair, and you are liable to get scuppered. The odds are a hundred to one on your being killed. I can't tell you any details at present, but think it over. You're not to tell a soul, and I'll write to you later and renew my offer. I shan't think you a coward if you refuse." Upon my soul, at that moment I half hoped he would refuse. I was awfully fond of Jimmy Thorogood. "My aunt!" he gasped, just as I had gasped in the Admiral's cabin in fact. "How perfectly _topping_! ... I say, thanks awfully, sir!" I left it at that. 8