Uncle Robert saw he could not speak, though he was trying hard to, so he wisely forestalled his questions.
“Your mother and father, sister and brothers are all well, and ’Theena is here on board the Caledonia.”
About the same time an earnest-eyed red man in goat skins had rushed up to Captain Herbert on the beach.
“Father,” he said. “Do not start, I am your boy, Bernard!”
But wonders had not ceased even yet. For coming along the path, clambering over lumps of scoriæ and kicking away cinders, was Barnaby Blunt himself.
“I tell you what it is, friends, this is about the prettiest bit of an ending to a drama that ever I see’d in all my born days, and I reckon nobody’ll care to contradict me. Here was Captain Barnaby Blunt foundered at sea, and took to boats, separated from his dinghy and finally picked up by a whaler, who landed him at Buenos Ayres. Here five months afterwards was Captain Herbert, and my young friend’s Uncle Robert, come out from England to look for their runaway boys, and here we all meet again as unexpected as if we had dropped out of a balloon. If it ain’t about the strangest and queerest thing that ever happened, then may Barnaby Blunt never command a ship of his own again, nor meet his dear old wife, ’Liza Ann. And here’s Brandy himself.”
Then this queer old Quaker Yankee got serious all at once.
“I say, men and boys,” he said, “don’t you think we’ve all got a deal to be thankful for. Then let us just kneel down here among the cinders and praise God’s holy name.”
They did kneel down—just there, where they had been standing, and if Barnaby Blunt’s prayer was brief it was heartfelt.
. . . . . . .