s health was drunk with all honors.

"I suppose," one of the midshipmen said, "that the contents of the
dispatch were with reference to the point to which we are all bound. I
wonder where it can be?"

Here an animated discussion arose as to the various points against
which the attack of the fleet, now rapidly assembling at Spithead,
might be directed. So far no whisper of its probable course had been
made public, and it was believed indeed that even the captains of the
fleet were ignorant of its object.

Upon the following day Harry at once obtained leave to go on shore for
twenty-four hours. Immediately he reached the Head he chartered a
wherry, and was on the point of sailing when he heard a well-known
voice among a group of sailors standing near him.

"I can't make head or tail of it," Peter Langley said. "My boy left me
merely to go down to the village, and was to have returned the first
thing in the morning to join his ship in London. Well, he never came
back no more. What he did with himself, unless he sailed in a
smuggling lugger which put out an hour or two afterwards, I can't make
out. The boy would never have shipped in that craft willingly, and I
can see no reason why he should have gone otherwise. He didn't cross
the ferry, and I can't help suspecting there was some foul play. When
Black Jack returns I will have it out of him if I kill him for it. He
has a strong party there, and I want half a dozen good tight hands to
come with me to Hayling. He will probably be back in a couple of days,
and if we tackle him directly he lands we may find out something about
him. Who will go with me?"

Half a dozen voices exclaimed that they were willing to assist their
old mate, when suddenly Harry stepped in among them, saying, "There's
no occasion for that. I can tell them all about him."

Peter Langley stepped backwards in his astonishment, and stared
open-mouthed at Harry.

"Dash my buttons!" he exclaimed; "why, if it isn't Harry himself, and
in a midshipman's rig. What means this, my boy?"

"It means, father, that I am a midshipman on board his majesty's ship
_Caesar_."

Peter stood for a moment as one stupefied with astonishment, and then
threw his tarpaulin high in the air with a shout of delight. It fell
into the water, and the tide carried it away; Peter gave it no further
thought, but, seizing Harry's hand, wrung it with enthusiastic
delight.

"This is news indeed, my boy," he said. "To think of seein