Another queer old stick came to the sick bay complaining of being ill, notwithstanding that he looked hale and hearty. "What's the matter with you?" asked Dr Nettleby, in his sharp, incisive manner, which had not grown any milder from his sojourn in the China Sea and an attack of liver complaint. "You seem all right, my man." "I've got overhand knots in my gaffs, sir." "What on earth do you mean?" cried the doctor, puzzled by the name of this new disease. "Overhand knots in your gaffs--why, you must be drunk!" "No, sir, I ain't," replied the old sailor, soberly enough, holding out his hands, which were twisted about, the fingers resembling the strands of a rope overlaying each other, and the knuckles distorted out of shape. "My spars, sir, refuses duty." He had very aptly described his complaint, although it might not be similarly designated in any medical dictionary. The poor fellow was suffering from rheumatism! CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE. "PAID OFF!" But it is time to bring this long yarn of mine to a close. It was a fine, bright day, in the early part of October, that we hove the ship to for soundings, our observations then showing us that we were near Scilly and closing the land; so, on getting sand and shells at five-and-thirty fathoms, which proved that we were well within the Chops of the Channel, we squared away our mainyard before a brisk sou'-west breeze and made for the Lizard, which we sighted at Four Bells in the forenoon watch. We then bore up Channel direct, and, the wind holding fair, we passed Saint Catharine's Point next morning; saluting the port admiral on our rounding Bembridge Ledge and anchoring at Spithead somewhere about mid-day. "By jingo!" cried Mr Jellaby, who was now our first lieutenant, having gained a step by the promotion of our former chief officer, "glass-eye;" though most of the old officers who had sailed with me from England paid off in the ship with us, there having been few changes in our complement, whether through death, disease or desertion, beyond the losses we had experienced in our unsuccessful attack on the Taku Forts, and from the subsequent sickness we had aboard when we were up the Gulf of Pechili in the hot season. "How jolly glad I shall be to see the general's daughters again, young Vernon; what chawming gurls they were, to be sure! I do hope they're not all married!" "Indeed, sir?" said I, interrogatively. "I hope they're not, I'm sure, for your sake, if not for their own. But, I'm not thinking, now of any young ladies, sir. I'm looking forward to seeing my dear old Dad again, and my mother and sister." "Ah, that's what you say now, my boy," he retorted, with his genial laugh. "But, when your whiskers are grown, like mine, you'll be thinking of some other fellow's sister, I bet."