e troopship, with silver raining from the blades of their oars into
the sparkling bosom of that wondrous bay. A joyous little flotilla of
Neapolitan water craft was theirs, for they had chartered several of the
clumsy, unwieldly looking, yet most serviceable barklings, each with its
dusky, brown-throated oarsman. They had spent some merry hours after the
long, hot voyage through Indian seas and under torrid skies. They had
heard much catchy music that all could appreciate and few words,
fortunately, that any could understand. They were chatting and singing
and recalling the brilliant scene, the dazzling lights, the lustrous
corridor and stairway of pure white marble, the coaxing, wheedling swarm
of beggar children, the sharp and ever-recurrent contrast between
splendid opulence and squalid misery, and as they circled under the
massive overhang of their stanch and trusty ship, and one after another
each merry boatload came again in full view of the frowning cone of old
Vesuvius, belching lurid flame and billowing ruddy streams of molten
lava from its crest, some sweet-voiced woman in the foremost boat
uplifted her heart in the barcarole from "Masaniello": "Behold how
brightly breaks the morning," and, though morning was yet some hours
away, here but a league or two across the star-reflecting deep and under
the shoulder of the mountain furnace lay the vine-covered walls of
Portici, where first was trilled that exquisite welcome to Aurora. And
so with music and merriment and laughter, homeward bound from distant
service in defense of a beloved flag, they came trooping up the side,
the opulence of their gladness all the sharper contrast to the dull
apathy of one lone watcher who shrank from their approach and sought
seclusion across the deck and in the shadow of the long boat.

Ray was not in his stateroom when Foster bustled thither to inquire. Ray
had returned some hours before, said the ship's official on duty. Ray
was not found, however, until nearly four bells, when Foster, who had
smoked too much to feel sleepy and wished to "stay up and see Vesuvius,
anyhow," made an extended inspection of the silent deck. Foster had
taken it amiss that Ray should seem so downhearted and be so
uncompanionable. Foster felt that the time had come when, in the absence
of Sandy's own, he (Foster) should assume paternal rights, or at least
those of elder brother, and take the youngster to task. Here and there
about the big ship he found, i