After dark a lamp was hung on the fore stay; watchmen patrolled the 'tween deck, and the three boys were soon enjoying the delights of an 'all night below.'
At six o'clock next morning the crew set to work washing the deck, and shortly after breakfast the little steamer returned.
She was speedily filled with emigrants, and for nearly a week the work of disembarkation continued.
At last the clipper was cleared of her living freight.
All the sails were sent down from aloft and stowed away, while the fittings of every cabin in the 'tween deck and steerage were carefully removed and sent ashore, and fetched good prices at auction.
Then the ship was thoroughly cleaned both inside and out, and the yards, masts, and hull were painted.
Jack Clewlin sent home a full description of his voyage, and the delights of sea life. One week later, during which the 'Merrie England' arrived, he experienced his first trip on an Australian river.
In one of the lifeboats, and accompanied by Readyman and a strong crew from the starboard watch, he speedily reached the inner end of the bay and the mouth of the Brisbane.
The twenty miles of somewhat narrow waterway—the river being low at the time—proved peculiarly fascinating, especially to men long confined on shipboard, and the winding course of the stream presently found them wholly land-locked amidst the most beautiful verdure, that sprang directly from the water, and grew in such wild luxuriance that not even the smallest particle of ground could be seen. Great tropical plants and large broad-leaved, glass-smooth fern-palms flourished beneath trees that never shed their leaves, but from which long strips of bark depended in fantastic profusion.
'It's wonderful pretty, Master Jack,' Readyman observed. 'The real handiwork of the Creator. And yet, I suppose, within a few years it will all have gone before the axe, and the enterprising advance of the settler?'