“Steward,” exclaimed the chief-officer of the American barque _Decatur_, lying just then in Table Bay, into which she had put on her long voyage to Australia, for the purpose of obtaining water and fresh provisions—“the skipper’s sent word off that there’s two passengers coming on board for Melbourne; so look spry and get those after-berths ready, or I guess the ‘old man’ ’ll straighten you up when he does come along.” Soon afterwards, the “old man” and his passengers put in an appearance in the barque’s cutter; the anchor, short since sunrise, was hove up to the catheads, topsails sheeted home, and, dipping the “stars and bars” to the surrounding shipping, the _Decatur_ again, after her brief rest, set forth on her ocean travel. John Leslie and Francis Drury had been perfect strangers to each other all their lives long till within the last few hours; and now, with the frank confidence begotten of youth and health, each knew more of the other, his failures and successes, than perhaps, under ordinary circumstances, he would have learned in a twelvemonth. Both were comparatively young men; Drury, Australian born, a native of Victoria, and one of those roving spirits one meets with sometimes, who seem to have, and care to have, no permanent place on earth’s surface, the _wandergeist_ having entered into their very souls, and taken full possession thereof. The kind of man whom we are not surprised at hearing of, to-day, upon the banks of the Fly River; in a few months more in the interior of Tibet; again on the track of Stanley, or with Gordon in Khartoum. So it had been with Francis Drury, ever seeking after fortune in the wild places of the world; in quest, so often in vain, of a phantasmal Eldorado—lured on, ever on, by visions of what the unknown contained. Ghauts wild and rocky had re-echoed the report of his rifle; his footsteps had fallen lightly on the pavements of the ruined cities of Montezuma, sombre and stately as the primeval forest which hid them; and his skiff had cleft the bright Southern rivers that Waterton loved so well to explore, but gone farther than ever the naturalist, adventurous and daring as he too was, had ever been. At length, as he laughingly told his friend, fortune had, on the diamond fields of Klipdrift, smiled upon him, with a measured smile, ‘twas true, but still a smile; and now, after an absence of some years, he had taken the opportune chance of a passage in the _Decatur_, and was off home to see his mother and sister, from whom he had not heard for nearly two years. Leslie was rather a contrast to the other, being as quiet and thoughtful as Drury was full of life and spirits, and had been trying his hand at sheep-farming in Cape Colony, but with rather scanty results; in fact, having sunk most of his original capital, he was now taking with him to Australia very little but his African experience.