“Yes, sir, dessay I shall; and it will be a treat to sit down at a decent table with a white cloth on, and eat bread and butter like a Christian.”
“Instead of tough salt junk, Jem, and bad, hard biscuits.”
“And what a waste o’ time it do seem learning all this sailoring work, to be no use after all. Holy-stoning might come in. I could holy-stone our floor at home, and save my Sally the trouble, and—” Jem gave a gulp, then sniffed very loudly. “Wish you wouldn’t talk about home.”
Don smiled sadly, and they were separated directly after.
The time went swiftly on in their busy life, and though his absence from home could only be counted in months, Don had shot up and altered wonderfully. They had touched at the Cape, at Ceylon, and then made a short stay at Singapore before going on to their station farther east, and cruising to and fro.
During that period Don’s experience had been varied, but the opportunity he was always looking for did not seem to come.
Then a year had passed away, and they were back at Singapore, where letters reached both, and made them go about the deck looking depressed for the rest of the week.
Then came one morning when there was no little excitement on board, the news having oozed out that the sloop was bound for New Zealand, a place in those days little known, save as a wonderful country of tree-fern, pine, and volcano, where the natives were a fierce fighting race, and did not scruple to eat those whom they took captive in war.
“Noo Zealand, eh?” said Jem.
“Port Jackson and Botany Bay, I hear, Jem, and then on to New Zealand. We shall see something of the world.”