en danced hand-in-hand like children round a Maypole. Their
manners, however, were hardly childlike, for they jumped, and yelled,
and sang with the ruddy firelight glowing on their countenances, till
they looked like a lot of demons performing some diabolical incantation.
All around was the dark night, and rocks, and trees, which gave a most
weird aspect to the scene when viewed from a short distance.

And thus they were enjoying their pandemonium when my father, the
skipper, and I left them in the "wee sma' hours" and retired to rest.

How long they kept it up I know not, but when I awoke and dressed at
daylight all was quiet. At six all hands were called, and a sorry sight
they presented. Ross had mounted a jury-leg, while among the other men
no less than three black eyes appeared, beside bruised cheeks, and red
swollen noses. However, all were friendly again, and agreed that they
had hardly ever before spent such a jolly night. Such was a sailor's
idea of a jolly time or "high old spree!"

Breakfast over, my goods were hauled from the beach and placed in the
different rooms and sheds according to their kind, while by noon the
"Cormorant," with her Blue Peter flying, was ready for a start northward
to dear old England. The Guernseaise had departed amid give and take
cheering directly after breakfast, so that only the crew of the vessel
remained. My father bade me an affectionate farewell on the deck of the
vessel, but at the last embrace I felt too full of emotion to speak, for
a lump was in my throat, and a tear started from my father's eye and
rolled down his bronzed cheek, so that I knew that he, too, was greatly
moved at losing me for such a long period. A firm grip of the hand told
without words how we, father and son, loved each other, and to hide my
emotion I tumbled over the bulwarks into the dingy, and was pulled
ashore by a couple of hands, amid the hearty cheers of the men who stood
on deck. They gave me a salute of twelve _guns_ (fired from two
revolvers).

I stood on the rocky shore and waved a tablecloth tied to a boat-hook
till the vessel was hull down on the horizon, and then turned my face to
my island home, not feeling nearly so happy as I had anticipated a month
before. Alone! I felt as if the whole world had departed from me, and
that I was the sole survivor of the human race.

[Illustration: Decorative chapter heading]

CHAPTER III.

FIRST THOUGHTS AND IMPRESSIONS--A TOUR OF TH