I pocketed the boatman’s newspaper, lest the cabin servant, coming into my cabin, should espy and carry it away. And I also put in my pocket some trifles which I had purchased as curios at one or another of the ports we had visited, and then going on deck I hailed the boat that had been keeping close to us, but that was now lying alongside a brig some little distance away, and bade the fellows put me ashore. Sheet lightning was playing round the sea, but stars in plenty were shining over our mastheads; the water was very smooth; I did not feel the lightest movement of air. Forward on our ship a man was playing on the fiddle, and a group of seamen in lounging attitudes were listening to him. I also heard the voice of a man singing on the vessel lying astern of us: but all was hushed aboard the frigate; the white lines of her stowed canvas ruled the stars in pallid streaks as though snow lay upon the yards; no light showed aboard of her; she lay grim, hushed, big in the dusk with a suggestion of expectancy in the dominating sheer of her bows and in the hearkening steeve of her bowsprit, as though steed-like she was listening with cocked ears and wide nostrils; and yet, dark as it was, you would have known her for a British man-of-war, spite of the adjacency of some East and West Indiamen which looked in the gloom to float nearly as tall as she. “It’s a quarter to eight, Bill,” exclaimed Captain Spalding, going to the companion way and standing in it, while he spoke to me with one foot on the ladder. “You will remember to keep your weather eye lifting, my lad. At the first slant I get my anchor; so stand by. Ye’d better ask Uncle Joe to keep his window open, that you may smell what you can’t see and hear what you can’t smell. My respects to Uncle Joe. Tell him if I’m detained here to-morrow I may pay him a visit, unless he has a mind for a cut of Deal beef and a piece of ship’s bread down in my cabin. Anyhow, my respects to him,” and he vanished. I dropped into the mizzen chains, got into the galley, and was rowed ashore. CHAPTER II. I VISIT MY UNCLE AT DEAL. The boat was swept to the beach, and I sprang on the shingle. I paid the men their charges, and paused a moment to realize the thrilling, inscrutable, memorable sensation which visits a man who, after a long absence, treads his native soil for the first time.