It was the accepted jest for all hands to greet the conclusion of this song with the simultaneous cry:  “My word!” thus winging the arrow of ridicule with a feather from the singer’s wing.  But he had his revenge with Home, Sweet Home, and Where is my Wandering Boy To-night?—­ditties into which he threw the most intolerable pathos.  It appeared he had no home, nor had ever had one, nor yet any vestige of a family, except a truculent uncle, a baker in Newcastle, N.S.W.  His domestic sentiment was therefore wholly in the air, and expressed an unrealised ideal.  Or perhaps, of all his experiences, this of the Currency Lass, with its kindly, playful, and tolerant society, approached it the most nearly.

It is perhaps because I know the sequel, but I can never think upon this voyage without a profound sense of pity and mystery; of the ship (once the whim of a rich blackguard) faring with her battered fineries and upon her homely errand, across the plains of ocean, and past the gorgeous scenery of dawn and sunset; and the ship’s company, so strangely assembled, so Britishly chuckle-headed, filling their days with chaff in place of conversation; no human book on board with them except Hadden’s Buckle, and not a creature fit either to read or to understand it; and the one mark of any civilised interest, being when Carthew filled in his spare hours with the pencil and the brush:  the whole unconscious crew of them posting in the meanwhile towards so tragic a disaster.

Twenty-eight days out of Sydney, on Christmas eve, they fetched up to the entrance of the lagoon, and plied all that night outside, keeping their position by the lights of fishers on the reef and the outlines of the palms against the cloudy sky.  With the break of day, the schooner was hove to, and the signal for a pilot shown.  But it was plain her lights must have been observed in the darkness by the native fishermen, and word carried to the settlement, for a boat was already under weigh.  She came towards them across the lagoon under a great press of sail, lying dangerously down, so that at times, in the heavier puffs, they thought she would turn turtle; covered the distance in fine style, luffed up smartly alongside, and emitted a haggard looking white man in pyjamas.

“Good-mornin’, Cap’n,” said he, when he had made good his entrance.  “I was taking you for a Fiji man-of-war, what with your flush decks and them spars.  Well, gen’lemen all, here’s wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,” he added, and lurched against a stay.

“Why, you’re never the pilot?” exclaimed Wicks, studying him with a profound disfavour.  “You’ve never taken a ship in—­don’t tell me!”

“Well, I should guess I have,” returned the pilot.  “I’m Captain Dobbs, I am; and when I take charge, the captain of that ship can go below and shave.”

“But, man alive! you’re drunk, man!” cried the captain.

“Drunk!” repeated Dobbs.  “You can’t have seen much life if you call me drunk.  I’m only just beginning.  Come night, I won’t say; I guess I’ll be properly full by then.  But now I’m the soberest man in all Big Muggin.”