I don't think I can ever forget the excitement and enthusiasm aroused on board as the news became known, and on her coming up with the sea breeze at breakfast-time everybody seemed to go mad with joy, the officers shaking hands with each other all round and the men crowding the rigging and cheering the _Daphne_ as she passed up to her anchorage inside of us. That very same afternoon, being all ready and waiting, we sailed from Singapore for the Cape, "homeward bound." What a night that was down below in the gunroom. Although it was not Saturday evening, when our weekly sing-song was usually celebrated, youngsters and oldsters alike united with a common impulse to have a general hullabaloo, their efforts resulting in such a row as never had been heard, I believe, on board the old _Candahar_ before, and, I am equally positive, has not been equalled since, even after she became a harbour ship and was reduced to her present condition of "Receiving Hulk." I can fancy I see the scene now before me as I write these last lines of my yarn. There were Larkyns and Ned Anstruther, both of whom, like myself, had passed through the chrysalis stage of midshipmen and came within the category of oldsters, the one with a banjo, and the other handling a broken-down concertina, very wheezy about the gills; with little Tommy Mills, who was only a "midshipmite" still, in every sense of the word, accompanying them with a rattling refrain from a pair of ivory castanets which he had purchased for a paper dollar in a curio shop at Canton. All the rest of the fellows were shouting out at the pitch of their voices, as only middies and mates and such-like fry can shout, the chorus of the old sailors' song:-- "We'll rant and we'll roar like true British sailors, We'll rant and we'll roar all on the salt seas, Until we strike soundings in the Channel of Old England; From Ushant to Scilly 'tis thirty-five leagues!" Those on the deck above, however, did not wait until we had arrived "in soundings"; for, just as the song was being repeated by acclamation for the third time, the chorus getting louder and louder after each repetition, Sergeant Macan, as he now was, having gained his extra stripes soon after his reinstatement as corporal for his gallantry in the assault on the Taku Forts, appeared at the door of the gunroom in his old fashion, being yet retained by express permission as Dr Nettleby's factotum. "Plaize, yer 'onner," said he, addressing Larkyns, who was still caterer of the mess and the senior in rank of those present, as he was twanging away at his banjo with infinite zest, "the docthor sez if ye can't be aisy he axes ye to be as aisy as ye can." An uproarious shout was all the answer he got; and, grinning from ear to ear, he retreated, only to be succeeded by the master-at-arms, who came down to put out the lights by the commander's orders, when those who had not to go on night duty turned in and peace was restored.