Why, dad!
Yes—he; and none other.
It seems that shortly after I sailed in the Josephine, the gentleman who had made him an offer to purchase Mount Pleasant when I was ill—and then backed out of the bargain because dad would not immediately come to terms—renewed the proposal, and dad accepted at once.
Then, as he had nothing remaining to keep him out in the West Indies, he took passages in the next mail steamer home for my mother and my sisters and himself, arriving over here even before I could have expected to reach England had all gone well with our ship.
When they got to London, however, news came from Lloyd’s that the Josephine was lost, as our boats, which had been swept away in the hurricane, had been picked up by a homeward-bound ship.
Needless to say, dad and all my folk were heart-broken at hearing this.
Hardly, however, had they become reconciled to my death, as they thought, than a fresh piece of intelligence was passed on from Flores, narrating how we had touched there, all well on board; so, as soon as we were reported as being sighted in the Channel, dad was on the watch to be the first to greet me, coming down specially to Gravesend to board the ship as soon as she entered the river.
I need not describe the meeting with dad in the first place, nor the way in which my mother and sisters, dear little Tot included, welcomed me?
Hardly!
Jake must have the last word, though; for, it was only through his faithfulness that I had been preserved during all our perils on the sea.