y explanation
of your absence. Mr. Timmins and myself are strongly of opinion that you
simply hid yourselves till the vessel sailed, so as to be able to have a
run on shore and see all that was going on."

"We are very glad we have seen it, sir," Jim said; "but I don't think it
was at all our fault that we were left behind." And he then proceeded to
relate to the captain the story of what had befallen them since they
last met.

"Well, lads, I congratulate you on your escape, which was certainly a
very narrow one. You have, I hope, all written to your friends at home
to tell them everything that has taken place. It was most fortunate that
your telegram from here arrived the day after we got to England, so that
your friends practically received the news that you were missing and
that you were safe at the same time. We had delayed sending off letters
telling them that you were lost until we could receive an answer to our
telegram to the consul. I went over and saw your mother and sister the
same evening, Jack. Of course your mother was in some alarm at the
thought of the danger she pictured to herself that you must have gone
through. I told her I expected that when the row began you had hid up
somewhere, and that not knowing that matters had quieted down again you
had remained there until after we sailed."

The boys had all written home on the day after they had rejoined their
friends in Alexandria, and had, a week before the arrival of the _Wild
Wave_, received answers to their letters. An hour later an officer came
off with orders that the coal was not to be discharged on shore, but
that the transports would come alongside and fill up from her. For a
week all hands were engaged in the unpleasant duty of discharging the
coal. Steamer after steamer came alongside and took from one to three
hundred tons on board, to supply the place of the coal consumed on the
outward voyage. All on board were heartily glad when the work was over,
the decks scrubbed and washed down, and the hose at work upon the
bulwarks and rigging.

"We shall not be clean again till we have had twelve hour's rain on
her," Captain Murchison said. "It is the first time so far as I know
that the _Wild Wave_ has carried coal, and I hope it will be the last,
so long as I command her."

"Yes, I have been feeling a good deal like a chimney-sweep for the last
week, sir," Mr. Timmins remarked; "and shall not feel clean again till
all my togs have been ashore