to port, Roberts," said Eric.

"I doubt whether you'll let you," answered Roberts, jerking his finger
towards the skipper's cabin.

"Why?"

"He'll be afeard you might take the law on him."

"He needn't fear."

Roberts only shook his head.

"Then I must run away somehow. Will you help me?"

"Yes, that I will."

That very evening Eric escaped from the Stormy Petrel, unknown to all
but Roberts. They were in the dock, and he dropped into the water in the
evening, and swam to the pier, which was only a yard or two distant; but
the effort almost exhausted his strength, for his knee was still
painful, and he was very weak.

Wet and penniless, he knew not where to go, but spent the sleepless
night under an arch. Early the next morning he went to a pawnbroker's,
and raised L2:10s. on his watch, with which money he walked straight to
the railway station.

It was July, and the Roslyn summer holidays had commenced. As Eric
dragged his slow way to the station, he suddenly saw Wildney on the
other side of the street. His first impulse was to spring to meet him,
as he would have done in old times. His whole heart yearned towards him.
It was six weeks now since Eric had seen one loving face, and during all
that time he had hardly heard one kindly word. And now he saw before him
the boy whom he loved so fondly, with whom he had spent so many happy
hours of school-boy friendship, with whom he had gone through so many
schoolboy adventures, and who, he believed, loved him fondly still.

Forgetful for the moment of his condition, Eric moved across the street.
Wildney was walking with his cousin, a beautiful girl, some four years
older than himself, whom he was evidently patronising immensely. They
were talking very merrily, and Eric overheard the word Roslyn. Like a
lightning-flash the memory of the theft, the memory of his ruin came
upon him; he looked down at his dress--it was a coarse blue shirt, which
Roberts had given him in place of his old one, and the back of it was
stained and saturated with blood from his unhealed wounds; his trousers
were dirty, tarred, and ragged, and his shoes, full of holes, barely
covered his feet. He remembered too that for weeks he had not been able
to wash, and that very morning, as he saw himself in a looking-glass at
a shop-window, he had been deeply shocked at his own appearance. His
face was white as a sheet, the fair hair matted and tangled, the eyes
sunken and surrounded with a dark col