Jack, however, was just a little envious of Jamie's first wound, for, strange to say, although Jack had been in the thick of the fight, and the men had fallen around him in heaps, yet he had not received a scratch during the whole engagement.
What exciting adventures had already fallen to the lot of these two lads since they left the old school and village so precipitately! Yet even these adventures were but a foretaste, compared with those that yet awaited them out there, in the west.
Every day Jamie grew stronger, and as he and Jack paced the deck they talked of all these strange events which had happened to them since they left Burnside. What was the old Squire thinking of now, when his last and youngest son had left him to fight for the Empire? What did Old Click and Mr. Beagle say when they found the village lock-up empty and the birds flown? And old Dr. Birch, what did he think of the truants?
And they laughed over it all, with all the sang-froid and carelessness of youth, and yet they grieved when they remembered their friend, Captain Forbes, in his ocean grave. They could ill-spare him, yet the memory of him would always be with them, to spur them on to brave and manly deeds, for he had died like an English gentleman, and a brave son of Empire, fighting to the last for the flag that he loved, as many a man still would do, before that great land out there, beyond the ship's bow--the Canadas--would pass from the hands of the French, to become, as the ages unfolded, the greatest jewel in the British Crown.
But what did the future contain for them? They often asked each other this question, as at evening they watched that great ball of fire descend into the azure main. And when they had watched that shaft of crimson fade into a duller glow, they retired to the cabin that had been allotted to them, and pledged each other that, come good or ill, they would be friends and comrades--to the Gates. And if God willed it--for at this time they were specially drawn to think of His mercies and His watchfulness over them--they would yield their lives a willing sacrifice, like Captain Forbes, at the shrine of duty. For while their country needed men to fight her battles, whether by land or sea, even at the farthest bounds of Empire they would faithfully serve and as willingly die.
That pledge was never forgotten, and through all the dangers and misadventures that befell them, amid the virgin, trackless forests and the rivers and great lakes of North America, it was never broken.
Thus the voyage continued, with calm seas and fair winds, for more than a week, but the journey to the Gulf was not destined to be entirely without excitement, for one afternoon, when the wind had freshened a bit from the south-east, they were all startled by a sudden cry from the watch aloft of--
"Sail ho!"
"Where away?" called the officer of the watch.
"To the south-west, low down, sir!"