Just then Fred Sanders walked briskly into the cabin, doffed his hat, made a bow, laughed and said:
“Helloa, pop! how are you?”
Captain Strathmore gasped, stared and replied:
“No––no––no––Fred. Is that you, my own boy?”
And Fred laughed, and then, with tears in his eyes, leaped forward and threw his arms about the old captain’s neck and cried like a child, while the parent, fondly caressing him, cried too, and for a minute neither could speak an intelligible word.
“Pop,” finally said the youth, raising his head and sitting upon the strong knee, “I have been a bad boy. I have brought trouble to you, but I have come thousands of miles to ask your forgiveness and to try to cheer your declining years.”
“What are you talking about declining years for, you young rascal? I never was so strong and hearty in my life. You have made me twenty years younger! Ah, if your mother could but see this! But she is smiling in heaven over it, and so is our darling Inez, who joined her long ago. God be thanked! my boy is dead but is alive again!”
And, laughing and crying, they shook hands, and talked and talked.
“Tell me everything that has befallen you, my dear son.”