I was not sorry when after about twelve months I managed to get a transfer home. I may mention here, however, the end of the _Basuto_. She had various peculiarities, one of which was a playful habit of half filling her after hold with water. Of course that never had anything to do with the tunnel or the engine-room, so said the engineers at least; I had my own opinion on the matter. Then, again, she was infested with rats, and we got into a habit of shooting at them with small revolvers in the evenings when we were in harbour. I say little of minor depravities such as the anchor always fouling the stem when we got it. Anyhow, she stayed on the coast about two years after I left her, and then came home and was sold to some Frenchmen. The rest of the tale about her is as it was told to me. The new owners did not understand all her little failings as we had done; one fellow pulled a broomstick out of a hole one morning, and that started an inrush of water which they could not cope with. I heard that when the crew left her they did not even stop the engines--but I do not vouch for the truth of this particular yarn. I got my passage home in the _Nyanza_ as supernumerary second. Warleigh was skipper, William Somerset Ward was chief and Henry Barnes was second. I forget the others. Now Ward was one of the men who had been brought in over my head when the yarn was that they wanted “more experienced men” (contrast that with the cry of to-day of too old at forty). He was one of Green’s men and a very fine officer. He had brought with him many of the old Blackwall fashions, one of which was that the men of both watches should answer to their names when the watch was relieved. That was a plan that I took with me from that ship for the rest of my sea career, but it was an unpopular proceeding though most useful from a disciplinary point of view. Barnes on the other hand I had known since my first voyage to sea, when he was in the _Elphinstone_. His appearance was fiery and his character did not belie it, but he was a really good fellow at heart and I liked him. Trouble soon arose. Warleigh wrote in the night order-book that the dinner look-outs were to be kept alternately by the second, supernumerary second, and fourth officers. As a rule they were kept by the third and fourth only, so Barnes got the idea that Warleigh was unduly favouring me, although I was actually Barnes’ senior in the Company. He accordingly walked into the captain’s cabin the next morning and shut the door. No one ever knew exactly what transpired. Barnes was a big noisy man, and Warleigh slight and quiet. There was doubtless plain speaking, for when Barnes reappeared he went to his cabin and remained under arrest until we arrived home, when he left the service. He told me afterwards that he had told Warleigh “he could make his bally chum second mate, and perhaps that would please him”; but it always struck me that he sacrificed his prospects for absolutely no reason.