Jack’s return home was something of a triumph, though he was saddened by the loss of his companion during those trying scenes he could not put from his mind, while his longings to reach home were tinged with those forebodings one cannot escape who has been away so long, and the nearer he approached his native land the more ominous became those feelings!
Were his parents still living and well? Was--was Jenny still true to him? What had she thought of his long, weary years of absence? Until then he had not realized that he had been away so long.
At last the old Elizabeth was safely moored at her dock.
Though Captain Hillgrove was anxious to know what the result of their speculation was going to be, he allowed Jack time to hunt up his relatives and friends before the nitrate was moved from the ship’s hold.
I cannot begin to explain the joyous reception accorded our hero at his home, for many had given him up as dead.
With a tremulous tongue he asked for Jenny dreading, doubting, expecting he knew not what; and then his cup of happiness overflowed at the thrice-welcome news of her well-being and faithfulness to him, and that she had just returned to her native town.
Jenny was not only living and well, but she had never given up looking for him, believing he would some day return to her.
The sweet happiness of the meeting between the pair is too sacred to be revealed.
When the first transport of his reception home had passed, Jack proceeded to put on the market his ship-load of nitrate, to be met with another rebuff in the checkered wheel of fortune.
He could find no one with faith in the virtue of his product brought from the wilds of South America.