They were greatly amazed at the recital. The mother held that he would be sure to come before the night was over; that he had probably met with some of his old friends, and would be there after he had left them. She insisted that Grimaldi, who was tired, should go to bed, while she sat up and waited for her son. He did so, and the mother remained all through the long night anxiously expecting his arrival. This may appear a long story, but its conclusion invests it with a degree of interest which warrants the detail. The running away to sea of a young man, and his return after a lapse of years, is, and ever has been, no novelty in this island. This is not the burden of the tale. It possessed an awful interest to those whom it immediately concerned, and cannot fail to have some for the most indifferent reader. From that night in November, 1803, to this month of January, 1838, the missing man was never seen again; nor was any intelligence, or any clue of the faintest or most remote description, ever obtained by his friends respecting him. Next morning, and many mornings afterwards, the mother still anxiously and hopelessly expected the arrival of her son. Again and again did she question Grimaldi about him--his appearance, his manner, what he said, and all the details of his disappearance; again and again was every minute fact recalled, and every possible conjecture hazarded relative to his fate. He could scarcely persuade himself but that the events of the preceding night were a delusion of his brain, until the inquiries after his brother, which were made by those who had seen him on the previous night, placed them beyond all doubt. He communicated to his friends the strange history of the last few hours, with all the circumstances of his brother's sudden appearance, and of his equally sudden disappearance. He was advised to wait a little while before he made the circumstance public, in the hope that he might have been induced to spend the night with some shipmates, and might speedily return.