l you speak out frankly?" cried Jack.

"Yes, sir, that was it, sir," said Edward hastily. "Wish I'd held my
tongue, but it would come."

"Like a great girl, eh?"

"Well, sir, I can't help it, sir. You did seem more like a young lady
in those times. But you're as different as can be now, sir. You really
aren't like the same."

"That will do," said Jack. "You can go now."

"Yes, sir," said the man with alacrity; "but you won't leave me behind
another time, sir, for speaking out so free?"

"Wait and see," said Jack shortly; and the man was obliged to content
himself with that reply, and left the cabin.

"My word, he is getting a Tartar," said Edward to himself as he went to
his own quarters. "Fancy him dropping on to me like that! Well, it's a
change; and after all he's better so than being such a molly as he was."

"Like a great girl--like a great girl," muttered Jack as soon as he was
alone. "To say that to me! How it shows what people must have thought.
It was quite time there was a change. But I wonder what they all think
of me now."

A burning sensation made him turn to the glass, to see that his face was
growing brown, while in each of his cheeks there was a bright spot.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

JACK SEES A VOLCANO LIGHT UP.

"Is there going to be any wind to-night, captain?" said Sir John as they
went on deck. For answer the captain pointed away to the west, and Jack
saw here and there dark patches of rippled water, but the sails that
were left still hung motionless from the yards.

"In half-an-hour we shall be bowling along, Mr Jack," said the mate;
"and if the wind holds, before morning we shall be lying off the land."

"Then I think I shall sit up," said the lad eagerly, for his brain was
buzzing with expectation, and as full of exaggerated imaginations as it
could possibly be.

But with the nightfall, in spite of the inspiriting, cooling breeze
which sent them, as the mate had it, "bowling along," there was the
familiar sensation of fatigue, and at the usual time, after a long look
out into the darkness, Jack went to his cot, to dream that the island
was getting farther and farther off, and woke up at last with the
sensation that he had only just lain down.

For a few minutes he was too sleepy and confused to think, but all at
once the recollection of what he expected to see came to him, and he
leaped out of his berth and ran to the cabin window, but from thence he
could only see t