On returning to the _Active_ after our leave was up, Mick and I were sent to the guardship, or depot, having to leave our old ship through getting our new rating as ordinary seamen, we having been drafted to her as `boys'; for, being no longer held to be such, we, of course, had no `local habitation or name,' according to the saying, on board her. We did not have much of a stay at home, however, all the same, Mick getting appointed within the next fortnight to the flagship on the Cape station, when he and I parted for the first time since we became chums, more than two years previously, on our joining the _Saint Vincent_ together. A sailor's life, though, is made up of partings, not only with one another, but with the old folks at home as well, and sometimes with certain persons even dearer than these; so, wringing my hand in his hearty grip and leaving a tender farewell for Jenny, whom he was unable to see before going away, she being on a visit to a cousin of ours who lived at Chichester, Mick and I said good-bye to one another. Really, I envied his luck of getting the chance of seeing active service so soon! I did not have to envy him long; for, a week later, I was turned over to the _Mermaid_, a new second-class cruiser just commissioned to join the eastern division of the Mediterranean Fleet, to take the place for the time of one of the smaller ships belonging to the squadron, under refit at Malta, our orders being then to proceed to the Red Sea, where it was expected that Osman Digna would be making matters warm in and about Suakin later on in the year. Some three days subsequently to my going on board her, with a complete new rig-out, bag, baggage, and all, the _Mermaid_ sailed for the Straits; if sailing it can be called in a ship going by steam alone, and which had not a royal-yard to cross, or any other spars to speak of aloft for that matter, the cruiser being rigged to carry fore-and-aft sail in case of emergency should her engines break down. It might be thought from this that my early training in a sailing-ship was thrown away, there being no longer any necessity for me to display my activity in racing up the rigging and running out on a yard to reef topsails. The contrary, however, was the case; and I've found, even during my short experience afloat--ay, and in spite of the ridiculous assertions of some shore folk, who know about as much of life in the navy as they do to club-haul a ship off a lee shore--that the men who have learnt to hold on by the skin of their teeth in a heavy gale, from the aptitude they have gained in the old-fashioned class of ships, are the handiest and the readiest at a pinch in the new! Of course, though, I only found out this afterwards; as on first joining the _Mermaid_ the ship was as strange to me as I, sore at parting with Mick, felt myself a complete stranger to all on board. So I thought, at least. But I was mistaken. CHAPTER TWENTY TWO. AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE.