re the day on which we were
advertised to sail, I had the satisfaction of seeing the hatches put on
and battened down over a full hold, with the barque down to within an
inch of her load-mark.

Meanwhile, private stores in considerable quantities had come on board,
bearing Sir Edgar Desmond's name upon them, and these I had had
carefully stowed away by themselves. This had been a busy day for me;
for there were the articles to be signed, the ship to clear at the
Custom House, bills to pay, and a hundred other little matters to attend
to--among them the giving up of my lodgings, and the removal of my
mother and myself with our dunnage to the ship--but when I turned in
that night, in my own comfortable state-room, it was with the feeling
that my business of every kind had been satisfactorily concluded, and
that henceforth, until our arrival in Hong Kong, I should only have the
ship to look after. Moreover, the whole of my crew, with two
exceptions, had faithfully kept their promise to be on board before the
dock-gates closed that night, so that I might reasonably hope to go out
of dock with a tolerably sober crew in the morning.

We unmoored at seven o'clock next morning, and half an hour later--the
two absentees from the forecastle scrambling on board as we passed out
through the gates--were clear of the dock and in the river, with the tug
ahead and the first of the ebb to help us on our way. We made a pause
of half an hour off Gravesend, to pick up Sir Edgar Desmond and his
party--who had spent the night at an hotel there--and then, pushing on
again, found ourselves, about six o'clock that evening, off the North
Foreland, with a light northerly air blowing, which, when we had got the
barque under all plain sail, fanned us along at a speed of about five
knots.

CHAPTER FOUR.

IN BLUE WATER.

As the sun declined toward the west, the light breeze which had
prevailed throughout the day became still lighter, dwindling away to
such an extent that when, about two bells in the first watch (nine
o'clock p.m.), we returned to the deck after partaking of our first sea
dinner, the water was like glass for the smoothness of it, while our
canvas drooped limp and apparently useless from the yards and stays; a
faint rustle aloft now and again, with an accompanying rippling patter
of reef-points, betraying rather some subtle heave of the glassy sea
than any sign that the breeze still lingered. Yet there must have been
a l