They returned Robarts to his ship, and a suppressed grin on a score of faces showed him the clear commanding tones of the commodore had reached his own deck. He soothed himself by stopping the men's grog and mast-heading three midshipmen that same afternoon. The night before he weighed anchor this disciplinarian was drinking very late in a low public-house. There was not much moon, and the officer in charge of the ship did not see the gig coming till it was nearly alongside: then all was done in a flurry. “Hy! man the side! Lanterns there! Jump, you boys, or you'll catch pepper.” The boys did jump, and little Murphy, not knowing the surgeon had ordered the ports to be drooped, bounded over the bulwarks like an antelope, lighted on the midship port, which stood at this angle /, and glanced off into the ocean, lantern foremost: he made his little hole in the water within a yard of' Captain Robarts. That Dignity, though splashed, took no notice of so small an incident as a gone ship-boy: and if Murphy had been wise and stayed with Nep. all had been well. But the poor urchin inadvertently came up again, and without the lantern. One of the gig's crew grabbed him by the hair, and prolonged his existence by an inconsiderate impulse. “Where is the other lantern?” was Robarts' first word on reaching the deck: as if he didn't know. “Gone overboard, sir, with the boy Murphy.” “Stand forward, you, sir,” growled Robarts. Murphy stood forward, dripping and shivering with cold and fear. “What d'ye mean by going overboard with the ship's lantern?” “Och, your arnr, sure some unasy divil drooped the port; and the lantern and me we had no foothold at all at all, and the lantern went into the say, bad luck to ut; and I went afther to try and save ut--for your arnr.” “Belay all that!” said Robarts; “do you think you can blarney me, you young monkey? Here, Bosen's mate, take a rope's-end and start him!--Again!--Warm him well!--That's right.” As soon as the poor child's shrieks subsided into sobs, the disciplinarian gave him Explanation for Ointment: “I can't have the Company's stores expended this way.” The force of discipline could no farther go than to flog zeal for falling overboard: so, to avoid anticlimax in that port, Robarts weighed anchor at daybreak; and there was a southwesterly breeze waiting for this favourite of fortune, and carried him past the Azores. Off Ushant it was westerly, and veered to the nor'-west just before they sighted the Land's End: never was such a charming passage from the Cape. The sailor who had the luck to sight Old England first nailed his starboard shoe to the mainmast for contributions; and all hearts beat joyfully--none more than David Dodd's. His eye devoured the beloved shore: he hugged the treasure his own ill luck had jeopardised--but Robarts had sailed it safe into British waters--and forgave the man his ill manners for his good luck.