He suddenly drew himself up as though on drill, and Julia stepped out of the companion-hatch. Sleep had touched her cheeks with a delicate bloom. She had refreshed herself with soap and water; her abundant hair was gracefully dressed; with the cunning fingers of a woman she had somehow, I do not know how, effaced in effect at least from her attire the soiling and creasing influence of hard weather upon the single robe. She had managed to warp her hat to its old bearings, and it sat cocked in its old coquettish pride upon her head. Her gaze was full of rapture as she looked at the ship, the straining sweep of white water over the side, the easy, manly figure of the man at the wheel, the _Magicienne_, which if this breeze lasted the ship must presently shift her helm to pass. "What do you think of this?" said Hardy to her. "Is it a dream, Mr. Harper?" said the girl. "Shall Mr. Hardy and I awaken to find ourselves on board an abandoned wreck?" "Call it a dream, mum," answered the boatswain, "and when you awake it will be England!" This story of the ship's adventure is told. Because what you wish and expect is bound to happen when safety and home are to be reached and realised by a noble, well-found clipper ship in charge of two sailors of the manliest character, and manned by fifteen splendid examples of the man-of-war's men of the Navy of that age. The merciful eye of God was upon this ship, for certainly the strength of our courageous couple had been expended in a long strife with the gale, and the dog, and the watch-tackle, and the winch without human help would have been of no use. Hardy would have been forced to take the first assistance that offered. It came to him in the triumphant spirit which informs the whole of this couple's adventures. Our sailor yearned for an estate for himself and for the girl that was to be his wife. He richly deserved the reward he desired. Had any ship but a man-of-war assisted him to get home the salvage claimed would have diminished his proportion to a sum which at the present rate of interest would not have yielded him the value of the pension of the retired naval bluejacket. The British man-of-war demands no salvage, and this is but just, because her very existence depends upon the safety of the British merchantman. If you extinguish the Merchant Service, you extinguish the need for a Navy and you extinguish the nation herself, because we are surrounded by the ocean, we are fed by the merchant sailor, and the bluejacket is paid to protect him whilst he brings us the daily bread for which we pray every Sunday in church, and sometimes more often than every Sunday.