The voyage was quite uneventful, but of petty incident there was the usual supply. Denis himself incurred the displeasure of the captain by his professional interest in every move, but in a rough-and-tumble round the Horn he made certain amends, and won further favour in the tropics. There they were becalmed three weeks. The ship was full of returning diggers, mostly unsuccessful, and discontent in the steerage was fermented by the harsh treatment of offenders upon whom the thwarted skipper wreaked insensate vengeance with the irons which are a snare to so many of his kind. It was Denis who remonstrated in the captain's cabin and reasoned between decks, and it was Denis who forthwith initiated the various interests which redeemed the remainder of the voyage. Here, however, he received valuable aid from a hard-bitten old sergeant of the Black Watch, named Thrush, who had thus far been an unpopular advocate of steerage discipline. From organized games these two worked up to a daily drill, owing a plausible existence to the pirates with which the seas were still infested in those days, and a corporeal to the valuable money-prizes which Denis put up. This passed a lot of time. The captain looked on approvingly from the poop. Sergeant Thrush bellowed and swore in his old element. Denis drilled humbly with the rest. In the channel he was thanked by the captain in a public speech, and so cheered by every throat on board that he must have stepped ashore in a glow, even with no Nan Merridew in the world. As it was he was naturally anxious, more nervous than he could have believed, yet full of simple-hearted faith and trust. God had been very good to him: disloyal and impious to anticipate aught but goodness at His hands. And yet--it was eleven long months and more! And yet--not a letter from his love in all that time! This, however, was his own fault rather than hers; there had been no time for answers to the few letters he was justified in hoping she had received. No one therefore was to blame, except himself. But yet much, only too much, might happen in eleven months. Denis went straight to Rothschilds' (for it was a Saturday morning), presented his draft, and was still wise enough in his excitement to open an account then and there. Fifty pounds he drew in cash, and the business was concluded in ten minutes. But it took Denis some hours, driving about in a cab, to render himself temporarily and approximately as presentable as he burned to be; and the afternoon was advancing when he stopped the cab on a country road, to jump out a new man, whose beard was trimmed beneath his changeless tan, but all else about him only too fresh from the shop.