I did not by any means relish the manner and tone, in which all this was said: so I asked him what particular service he belonged to. "You'll know that time enough," he replied, laughing; "but after all, why shouldn't I tell ye? there's nothing to conceal. We're a discovery-ship; we're goin' to look for Sir John Franklin's expedition, and after we've found it we're going to try the North Pole, and then go right through the Nor'-west passage, down by Behring's Straits, across the Pacific, touchin' at the Cannibal Islands in passin', and so on to China. Havin' revictualled there, we'll bear away for Japan, Haustralia, Cape o' Good Hope, and the West Indies, and come tearin' across the Atlantic with the Gulf-stream to England! Will that suit ye?" It may seem strange, and the reader will hardly believe me when I say, that, transparently absurd though this statement was, nevertheless I believed every word of it--and so did Jack. I saw that by his glowing eye and heightened colour. "And when do you sail?" I inquired joyfully. "In half an hour; so get aboard, boys, and don't give so much tongue. I've other matters to mind just now. Come, be off!" We retreated precipitately to the door. "What's her name?" inquired Jack, looking back. "`The Ring-tailed Smasher,'" cried the captain, fiercely. "The what?" "`The Ring-tailed Smasher,'" roared the captain, seizing the poker. We vanished. In five minutes we were on board the ship. To this hour I have no remembrance of how we got on board. My brain swam with intense excitement. I felt as if I were flying, not walking, as I ran about the deck and clambered up the rigging. Shortly after, the captain came aboard. The rope that attached the vessel to the quay was cast off, the sails flew out as if by magic, and the shore began to fall rapidly astern. It was now, for the first time, that a full sense of what I had done came over me. I leaned over the stern of the ship, and gazed at my native shore as it grew fainter in the distance, until the familiar hills became a mere line of blue on the horizon, and were finally blotted from my view by the blinding tears that sprang suddenly to my eyes. Oh! the agony of that moment I shall never forget. The words that Jack had quoted to me the night before--"Honour thy father and thy mother"--seemed to be stamped in letters of fire within my brain. I felt keenly that, in a moment of passionate self-will, I had done that which would cause me the deepest sorrow all my life.