"

"Now, why on earth you've taken this fancy--" began Captain Barker as
he regained the deck. And then he put his hands behind him and
stared; for Captain Jemmy was already hurrying away for his life.

It was fifteen minutes before he returned, and the little man was
hanging over the bows with half his body over the bulwarks and his
head twisted to get a better view of the formidable beak.

"Jack!"

"Oh, you're back. I say, just lean over here--"

"Jack!" Captain Runacles caught him by the coat-tails, and tore him
back. "Now listen; you're not to speak; you're not to ask questions;
you're not to open your mouth. You've just to come--that's all."

He took the little man and hurried him ashore. He was breathless;
but he ran Captain Barker over the gang-plank like a charging bull.

"One moment, Jemmy--Jemmy! Damme I _will_ ask--!"

"Ask away, then--and wait for the answer!"

And so it happened that Tristram, stretched in the hospital at
Sheerness, with his head to the wall, and thirty wounded men on
either side of him, heard in his painless dose a sharp cry, and then
a voice that seemed to call him across miles of empty space.

"O! my dear God! Tristram--my son, my son!"

He opened his eyes feebly, smiled, and whispering one word--"Dad!"--
sank back into a dreamless slumber.

CHAPTER XV.

BACK AT THE BLUE PAVILIONS.

Four weeks afterwards Tristram was put into a boat and taken up to
London, whence after two days' rest he was removed by easy stages
home to Harwich.

At the gate of Captain Barker's pavilion he passed into the care of
Dr. Beckerleg, who put him to bed at once and dared him to get up.
As he was borne up the garden-path Sophia peeped through a chink of
the little blue door; and got not another glimpse of her lover for
another six weeks.

It was a soft and sunny morning in October month when Dr. Beckerleg,
having given his patient leave to dress and set foot outside the door
for the first time, stepped down into the garden to seek the two
captains and send them upstairs to help the invalid.

As he opened the front-door a searching odour caused him to pause in
the porch and sniff. He traced this odour round to the back of the
house, and there found Captain Barker, Captain Runacles and Narcissus
Swiggs. Between them they had managed to clear the garden of an
enormous crop of weeds, of which they were now making a bonfire.
Behind the thick and yellowish coils of smoke Dr. B