As for our hero, he seemed to have settled down in life and was fast learning to become a good sailor. The pranks he used to play were now a thing of the past, and he fully justified the good opinion Captain Spark had of him.
It was a six months' trip home, for they were delayed two weeks or more by contrary winds, and several days longer in making the passage of Magellan Straits.
As the Walrus was to put in at Charleston, South Carolina, it was necessary for Captain Spark, Bob and Mr. Tarbill to make the rest of the journey home by rail. Mr. Carr and the two sailors secured berths in the Walrus. Though Captain Spark had lost all his money in the shipwreck, he was able to borrow enough for the fares of himself, Bob and Mr. Tarbill.
Bob reached home a little short of a year from the time he had left. He was a much better boy than when he went away. His father and mother did not need to be told of the change in him. They could see it for themselves.
"What did I tell you?" asked Captain Spark triumphantly of Mrs.
Henderson. "I said the voyage would make a man of Bob, and it did."
"The voyage or the shipwreck?" asked Mrs. Henderson.
"I guess it needed both," ventured Bob's father.
Of course Bob was the hero, of all his associates, and they never tired of hearing his stories of what had happened. Later it was learned that Second-Mate Bender and his men had been picked up by a passing vessel and saved. As for Captain Obediah Hickson, when he heard that Bob had returned, he hastened to see him, took him off into a corner and whispered:
"Did ye git th' treasure, Bob?"
"No, captain. I don't believe there was any. We didn't have a chance to look for the island before the shipwreck, and after it the map got lost."