announcing that the white walls of Cape Coast Castle were in sight, rising apparently sheer out of the jungle, and that beyond them lay our stately ships of war, and the free rolling waves of the blue highway that led to home and 'Old England.'
'Rescued, safe, spared to see the white cliffs again—home and Bella!' murmured Jerry.
Of his mother, though a warm-hearted fellow, he scarcely thought, or if so, it was in this fashion:
'By nature icy, with all her beauty and pride of place, she is my mother, true; but what has she done for me? As a child, she never caressed me, as other fellows' mothers did—no, by Jove, nor tucked me in my little bed, nor gave me toys or sweets. Did I ever see her read her Bible in church, or teach me to say a prayer at her knee? She only cared to see me prettily dressed, that I might outshine other women's children, but left me otherwise to hang as I grew; and, by Jove, it is a wonder I didn't grow up a worse fellow than I have done!'
With half a world of waters between them, these were hard thoughts for a son to have of his mother; but Lady Wilmot had inspired them herself.
Both Dalton and Jerry were in such a bad plight from their wounds, and the latter especially from exposure in the bush, that the doctors doubted much if they would 'pull through' after the embarkation, as they were ever and anon tossing on the troubled tide of a jungle-fever that threatened to bear them both away to the shores of 'the Promised Land,' with a grave in the tropical sea.
CHAPTER XI.
THE OLD WARNING.
Fondly had Alison Cheyne looked forward to her return to Chilcote, as a chance of reunion with Bevil Goring, as the means to a probable end of taking up the link of their love where it had last been dropped; and now she had to content herself with the scanty intelligence gathered by Archie among the soldiers of his regiment, that he was not in the camp—was in London, but none knew in what part thereof.
In London, thought Alison, and making apparently no effort to write, or to discover her; but she forgot that he must be utterly ignorant of her movements; whether she was at home or abroad; and that she could now receive letters freely and unquestioned, as her father was all but bed-ridden again.