Meanwhile, private stores in considerable quantities had come on board, bearing Sir Edgar Desmond's name upon them, and these I had had carefully stowed away by themselves. This had been a busy day for me; for there were the articles to be signed, the ship to clear at the Custom House, bills to pay, and a hundred other little matters to attend to--among them the giving up of my lodgings, and the removal of my mother and myself with our dunnage to the ship--but when I turned in that night, in my own comfortable state-room, it was with the feeling that my business of every kind had been satisfactorily concluded, and that henceforth, until our arrival in Hong Kong, I should only have the ship to look after. Moreover, the whole of my crew, with two exceptions, had faithfully kept their promise to be on board before the dock-gates closed that night, so that I might reasonably hope to go out of dock with a tolerably sober crew in the morning. We unmoored at seven o'clock next morning, and half an hour later--the two absentees from the forecastle scrambling on board as we passed out through the gates--were clear of the dock and in the river, with the tug ahead and the first of the ebb to help us on our way. We made a pause of half an hour off Gravesend, to pick up Sir Edgar Desmond and his party--who had spent the night at an hotel there--and then, pushing on again, found ourselves, about six o'clock that evening, off the North Foreland, with a light northerly air blowing, which, when we had got the barque under all plain sail, fanned us along at a speed of about five knots. CHAPTER FOUR. IN BLUE WATER. As the sun declined toward the west, the light breeze which had prevailed throughout the day became still lighter, dwindling away to such an extent that when, about two bells in the first watch (nine o'clock p.m.), we returned to the deck after partaking of our first sea dinner, the water was like glass for the smoothness of it, while our canvas drooped limp and apparently useless from the yards and stays; a faint rustle aloft now and again, with an accompanying rippling patter of reef-points, betraying rather some subtle heave of the glassy sea than any sign that the breeze still lingered. Yet there must have been a light draught of air aloft, for the vane at our main-royal-masthead occasionally fluttered languidly out along the course we were steering, and our royals exhibited an occasional tendency to fill, albeit they as often collapsed again softly rustling to the masts. Moreover, the barque still retained her steerage-way. I remarked upon this to the mate, who had charge of the deck. He laughed.