of
agility that could hardly have been excelled by a monkey.

"Why, what are you all afraid of?" asked the captain of the ship, who
had come on board with a number of passengers just before the occurrence
of this incident.

"Come down here, sir, and you'll see," replied the mate, who was in the
main-chains.

The captain declined with a smile, and advised the use of a lasso.

Immediately every man of the ship's crew became for the nonce a Mexican
wild-horse tamer! Running nooses were made, and Jack, albeit unused to
taking wild cattle on the prairies of America, was, nevertheless, such
an adept at casting a coil of rope that he succeeded beyond the most
sanguine expectation. The bo's'n was the first to throw a loop over the
creature's front horn--cast a hitch over its foremast as he styled it--
amid a deafening cheer. He was immediately pulled out of the rigging,
and a second time lay wallowing in the port scuppers; but he cared
nothing for that, being upheld by the glory of having succeeded in
fixing the first noose. Soon after that Stanley Hall threw a noose over
the creature's head, and Jim Welton fixed one on its second horn--or, as
the bo's'n said, round his mizzen. In the course of half-an-hour the
rhinoceros was so completely entangled in the twisted ropes that he
seemed as though he were involved in a net. He was finally captured,
and led to a ponderous stall that had been prepared for him between the
fore and main masts.

Soon afterwards the last of the human passengers came on board. There
were many of them. Officers and their wives and children--some in
health, some in sickness. Old warriors returning home to repose on
their laurels. Young warriors returning home to recruit their health,
or to die. Women who went out as wives returning as widows, and women
who went out as widows returning as wives. Some returning with fortunes
made, a few returning with fortunes broken; but all, old and young,
healthy and sick, rich and poor, hopeful and hopeless, glad at the
prospect of leaving the burning skies of India behind, and getting out
among the fresh breezes of the open sea. Then the sails were set, and
with a light evening breeze the Wellington began her voyage--homeward
bound...

Once again the scene changes. Blue skies are gone. Grey clouds
preponderate. In the Atlantic, tossed by the angry billows, a large
ship scuds before the wind as though she were fleeing from the pursuit
of a relentl