“Yes,” said Sir John, “it would be foolhardy to stay here longer now.”
“Then by your leave, sir, I’ll take the yacht outside at once, for one never knows what may happen when a volcano begins to work. There! look at that! We’ll get out while we can.”
A terrific explosion reached their ears as he spoke, and without a moment’s delay orders were given for steam to be got up, and before morning the yacht glided out through the reef, and past a flotilla of canoes which looked as if on their way to the island, but were lying-to as if startled from landing by the explosions which kept coming from the crater.
“Quite time our adventures ceased, Jack,” said Sir John, “when they were becoming as dangerous as this. It seems that we have just had another escape.”
“Yes, father,” said Jack quietly. “I am sorry to leave the place; but, as you say, it was quite time to go.”
Peaceful sea voyages in fine weather, from one of the well-known ports to the other for coal and other supplies, have been described too often for Jack Meadows’ quiet journey to China, from thence to Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and then round the Horn to Rio, Barbadoes, and then homeward, to need recapitulation here. Let it suffice that it was within six weeks of two years from starting that Sir John’s yacht steamed into Dartmouth harbour once more.
Two years—from sixteen to eighteen—work strange alterations in some lads; they had done wonders here, and Sir John and the doctor exchanged glances as Jack stepped down into the boat amid the cheers of the men, after he had shaken hands all round.
“Good-bye!” he shouted. “Remember that in six months we start on another cruise.”
A deafening cheer was the answer to this, and the men sprang up into the rigging, to stand waving their caps to the lad—the young man who had been almost carried on board.
That evening as the express steamed into Paddington, and Ned met his master on the platform to say that the luggage was all right, the man seized the opportunity to whisper to Jack—