as coming. Blessed if they hadn't called a
meeting--a regular mass-meeting--at the docks to discuss about it, and
I marched right into it when I landed. They didn't take long about
arresting me, and I listened to all the speeches and resolutions. If I'd
been a prince there couldn't have been more excitement. The end of all
was that they agreed that it wasn't right that New Zealand should be
allowed to foist her criminals upon her neighbors, and that I was to be
sent back again by the next boat. So they posted me off again as if
I was a damned parcel; and after another eight-hundred-mile journey I
found myself back for the third time moving in the place that I started
from.

By this time I had begun to think that I was going to spend the rest of
my existence traveling about from one port to another. Every man's
hand seemed turned against me, and there was no peace or quiet in any
direction. I was about sick of it by the time I had come back; and if
I could have taken to the bush I'd have done it, and chanced it with my
old pals. They were too quick for me, though, and kept me under lock and
key; but I managed, in spite of them, to negotiate that _cache_ I told
you of, and sewed the gold up in my belt. I spent another month in jail,
and then they slipped me aboard a bark that was bound for England.

This time the crew never knew who I was, but the captain had a pretty
good idea, though he didn't let on to me that he had any suspicions.
I guessed from the first that the man was a villain. We had a fair
passage, except a gale or two off the Cape; and I began to feel like
a free man when I saw the blue loom of the old country, and the saucy
little pilot-boat from Falmouth dancing toward us over the waves. We ran
down the Channel, and before we reached Gravesend I had agreed with the
pilot that he should take me ashore with him when he left. It was at
this time that the captain showed me that I was right in thinking him a
meddling, disagreeable man. I got my things packed, such as they were,
and left him talking earnestly to the pilot, while I went below for my
breakfast. When I came up again we were fairly into the mouth of the
river, and the boat in which I was to have gone ashore had left us. The
skipper said the pilot had forgotten me; but that was too thin, and I
began to fear that all my old troubles were going to commence once more.

It was not long before my suspicions were confirmed. A boat darted out
from the side