And the happy ship was homeward bound in earnest. Joy fore and aft. Ah, you landsmen, cannot easily understand the feeling in a sailor's heart; whose every footstep, as he walks the quarter-deck, seems to draw nearer and nearer to the bold bluff coast of Southern Britain.
Before they reached Rio de Janeiro, where Captain Breezy had orders to call and where letters for the crew were expected, Kep and Adolphus had a little private meeting and confab. They settled money matters between them, and then Keppel Drummond sought audience of the captain, asking permission for Adolph to come with him.
This was gladly granted, and the interview was but a short one.
"It seems, sir," said Kep, "that treasure will pan out to £2,200,000, and if so----"
"Oh, Kep, my lad," interrupted Breezy, "it will do more than that."
"Well, sir, this money belongs to Adolph and me, does it not?"
"Every penny, Keppel."
Kep then told him of his father's grief and illness from his downfall from Martello Castle to a small cottage by the sea, and how he, Kep, meant to set up his daddy and sister in their former state, and to do all he could to make his life happy.
"Adolphus here will, no doubt," he continued, "know what to do with his. And now, sir, I have only to ask that we may have the pleasure and honour of distributing all but the two millions to the officers and men of the ship."
Breezy grasped Kep by the hand and then Adolph. He was visibly affected.
"Let it be divided, as usual, with prize-money, only in this case your share, sir, must not be less than £50,000; nor any man's less than £1,000."
A public meeting was held next day, on the quarterdeck, all hands being called to hear the gladsome tidings. And I need not say that the cheering was such as is seldom heard on board a navy cruiser or battle-ship. Then the little band struck up; both Kep and Adolph were picked up and carried shoulder high around the deck, even the bayoneted sentries saluting as they passed.
It happened to be Saturday night, and so in good old fashion the main-brace was spliced and wives and sweethearts drank right joyfully.
They rounded the Horn in rough and tumbling weather, and in course of time reached Rio, the most beautiful and romantic city on the coast of South America. Almost as splendid with its surroundings of mountains and glens as Edinburgh itself.
Captain Breezy would have liked to have given the men and officers leave, but considering that they were now a treasure ship, and that men who take grog on shore are apt to open their minds too confidentially, he stopped all leave, and the ship was coaled from lighters.
He went on shore himself, taking only Kep and Adolph with him.
Yes; letters were here for all hands.
But terrible news as well, for Britain had just declared war on Russia and Germany, and dispatches from the Admiralty warned the captain that cruisers from each nation were scouring the seas and damaging or destroying British commerce.
He, the Captain, was to keep a good look-out day and night on his way home.
The news on board was received with an outbreak of cheering, and every man on board was full of fight, and trusted they would soon meet a Russian cruiser.
Captain Breezy had no need to remind them that they were a treasure ship, and that if they fell into the hands of the foe short indeed would be their shrift, and all the gold and precious stones would fall into the hands of the enemy.
Britain at war! Who could have dreamed of such a thing. On the ward-room and gun-room officers the tidings fell like a bolt from a summer sky.
Meanwhile all hands took to reading their letters. Some few were sad, but all the rest were filled with joy and hope.
Kep's heart was filled with feelings of love and gratitude as soon as his eyes fell upon the well-known handwriting of his sister.
In a former letter he had mentioned to her all about the photo of hers that the good and brave Dr. McTavish had shown him. It was he, Kep said, that had been the hero of her little romance in Italy.
And this was Madge's letter in return, or at least a portion of it. Kep had retired to the privacy of his own cabin and easy chair in order to read it.
"DEAR OLD KEP,--For you must, like myself, be getting old now. Would you believe it that I, your little sister, am on the borders of twenty, and not the green side of the border either, but the other. It was sweet of you to write me so long a letter. Quite brotherly too, and in some parts a bit bluff, but I loved it for all that.
"Do you know, Kep, that for dear Daddy's sake I was greatly tempted to let him sell me to the rich old man. I am often sorry for father. This villa is charmingly pretty, and its flowery lawns flow as it were, down almost to the edge of the cliff. But father sits in his chair sometimes for an hour thinking, thinking. I fill his meerschaum for him, and he dreams and dreams of his dear old home till he nods and sleeps.
"We have many neighbours; but though very kind, they are of the commoner middle classes, and though we don't entertain except to tea, I often have them and they me.
"The village where we live is on Cornish shores, and is well named Maretown (but the people don't sound the e, and pronounce it Mairtown). The beauty of the bay on an early summer morning is indescribable. Below the cliffs, which are yellowed o'er with scented furze and many a lovely wild flower, the wavelets break when the tide is high over the black rocks at the foot, with a strange murmur that seems to suit the cry of the sea-gulls.
"When the sea is back, it leaves long points of dark seaweed-covered rocks, with patches between of the yellowest of sand, and the long snow-like fringe of sea moans far away now.
"I'm often among the rocks, and find in pools such lots of darling funny wee fish and crabs and shells.
"But I love the sea in all its moods, by day or by night, when it lulls me to sleep.
"Sometimes I speak to it, sometimes I sing to it, or rather with it, for it is the same sea over which my darling brother sailed so long ago.
"At sunset I seem to love it best, Keppel."
When the burning golden Rose of the day Droops down to the Western sea, And the amber and purple flush of the sky And the crimson glow of the sea, Ebb, ebb away,--fade, fade and die; While the earth all mantled in shadowy grey, Washes her brow with a restful sigh In the cool sweet dews of the morning.
Then the letter goes on to tell of all the fun and capers of Bounder and herself, and how lively and lovely is Bounder still, and how she swims far out with him into the sea, and, when tired, puts one arm over his strong neck, her head on his shoulder, closes her eyes, and allows him to swim back with her to the sandy shore.
"And the boatmen are so kind, Kep," she adds, "and carry me and Bounder into their boats and take us for long, long sails.
"You ask me if I am pretty. Some say I am.
"But good-night, dear Kep, and sound be your sleep, 'rocked in the cradle of the deep.'
"Your ever loving,
"SISTER MADGE."
"P.S.--Oh, I had almost forgotten about your friend, Dr. McTavish. He might come down with you for a day or two. Do you think he would?"
Kep showed that letter to McTavish, and at the postscript he laughed enough to have exploded a torpedo.
"Might come down? By thunder!" he roared. "I'll come down whether anybody asks me or not. Ha! ha! ha!"
* * * * *
But the idea of a "scrape" with a Russian seemed to tickle the crew.
How clean her decks were kept now, and the great guns worked as smoothly as the chronometer. Every sword was sharpened, every cutlass as well; the best revolvers in the ship were served out. Moreover, ammunition was handy, and torpedoes too, and every day the men were exercised in clearing for action.
"By George! Tom, lad," Stormalong said to a pal, "we're not going to lose our gold, if we knows it."
"No; we'll fight like wild cats. Blowed if I wouldn't rather run along sich, like they did in the brave old times, and board the enemy."
But the Breezy got among the Azores, and one night, when some miles off the island of Flores, something extraordinary happened, which is well worthy of the beginning of another chapter to itself.