This being ascertained, Captain Hamilton, being that captain’s senior, signalled “Close and prepare to receive letters.”  In obedience to this she bore up, ran down, and rounded to; the sail in the Amphitrite was also shortened, the maintopsail laid to the mast, and a boat lowered.  The captain having finished his despatches, they, with the letter-bags, were handed into the boat, which shoved off, pulled to the lee side of the Vindictive, and left the despatches, with Captain Hamilton’s compliments.  On its return, both ships made sail on their respective course, exchanging “bon voyage” by signal, and soon the upper sails of the homeward-bounder were seen dipping below the horizon:  longing eyes followed her on board the Amphitrite.

How many hurried missives had been written and despatched in that half-hour.  But as for Staines, he was a man of forethought, and had a volume ready for his dear wife.

Lord Tadcaster wrote to Lady Cicely Treherne.  His epistle, though brief, contained a plum or two.

He wrote:  “What with sailing, and fishing, and eating nothing but roast meat, I’m quite another man.”

This amused her ladyship a little, but not so much as the postscript, which was indeed the neatest thing in its way she had met with, and she had some experience, too.

“P.S.—­I say, Cicely, I think I should like to marry you.  Would you mind?”

Let us defy time and space to give you Lady Cicely’s reply:  “I should enjoy it of all things, Taddy.  But, alas!  I am too young.”

N.B.—­She was twenty-seven, and Tad sixteen.  To be sure, Tad was four feet eleven, and she was only five feet six and a half.

To return to my narrative (with apologies), this meeting of the vessels caused a very agreeable excitement that day; but a greater was in store.  In the afternoon, Tadcaster, Staines, and the principal officers of the ship, being at dinner in the captain’s cabin, in came the officer of the watch, and reported a large spar on the weather-bow.

“Well, close it, if you can; and let me know if it looks worth picking up.”

He then explained to Lord Tadcaster that, on a cruise, he never liked to pass a spar, or anything that might possibly reveal the fate of some vessel or other.

In the middle of his discourse the officer came in again, but not in the same cool business way:  he ran in excitedly, and said, “Captain, the signalman reports it alive!”

“Alive?—­a spar!  What do you mean?  Something alive on it, eh?”

“No, sir; alive itself.”

“How can that be?  Hail him again.  Ask him what it is.”

The officer went out, and hailed the signalman at the mast-head.  “What is it?”

“Sea-sarpint, I think.”

This hail reached the captain’s ears faintly.  However, he waited quietly till the officer came in and reported it; then he burst out, “Absurd! there is no such creature in the universe.  What do you say, Dr. Staines?—­It is in your department.”