The bands of several regiments stationed at Portsmouth were now filling the sunny air with music, and the cheers of the Riflemen, clustering like bees along the sides of the mighty ship, were responding to the united voices of thousands on the shore, giving those hearty and joyous shouts that come from British throats and British lungs alone; and Laura, under all the pressure of the occasion and her own terrible thoughts, was on the point of fainting, as the transport came slowly abreast of the sea-wall, when Goring threw an arm round her, and exclaimed,
'Thank God, there is Dalton—there is dear old Tony at last!'
'Where—oh, where?' asked Laura, in a breathless voice.
'At the back of the poop,' he replied, lifting Netty aloft on his shoulder, as they now saw an officer—Dalton, indeed—with a face white as his tropical helmet, with the pallor that comes of suffering and much loss of blood—waving his handkerchief to them in recognition, for the ship was very close inshore, and Laura was soon to learn that the melancholy freight in the quarter-boat was the body of a poor sergeant who died off the Lizard, and whose widow—believing herself yet a wife—was awaiting him on the pier with a babe at her breast—the babe his eyes would never look upon.
In a few minutes more the steam was blowing off, and Goring with those in his care joined the stream of the privileged few, who poured along the gangways on board.
'God is very merciful,' murmured Laura, as she laid her face on Dalton's breast, heedless of spectators. 'He has given you back to me——'
'From the very gates of death, dearest Laura.'
'Oh, what should I have done if you had perished, my darling?—oh, my darling,' she said, in a low voice of exquisite tenderness as he embraced Netty—Antoinette so named after himself, and grown up to girlhood without his knowledge of her existence.
'Bravo,' cried a hearty voice familiar to them all; 'as Albert Smith used to say, "C'est l'amour, l'amour, l'amour, qui fait le monde go round, O." Thank God I see you and Old England again, Laura,' and Jerry Wilmot kissed her with hearty goodwill.
Like Dalton, Jerry was very pale and wan; but not so feeble as the former—and from the effects of his wounds and fever could scarcely stand, even yet.