Courage, True Hearts: Sailing in Search of Fortune. Stables Gordon

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      Duncan could soon be trusted to take sights, and even "lunars", and gave every evidence of possessing the steadiness and grit that goes so far to make a thorough British sailor.

      They touched at the Cape in due time, and Conal acted as clerk or "tally-boy" while cargo was being landed and fresh stock taken on board.

      The boys found time to have a look at the town. They went with one of the mates who had been often here before.

      Well, the hills all around, clad in their summer coats of dazzling heaths and geraniums, were quite a sight to see. But the town itself they voted dismally slow, and so I myself have found it, there being so many heavy-headed Dutchmen therein.

      They were not a bit sorry, therefore, when they found themselves once more on the heaving billows.

      And the billows around the Cape of Good Hope do heave too with a vengeance.

      Such mountain waves Duncan could not have believed existed anywhere. Tall and raking though she was, the Ocean's Pride was all but buried when down in the trough of the waves.

      There was but a six-knot breeze when they started to stretch away and away across that seemingly illimitable ocean betwixt the Cape and Australia. Oh such a lonesome sea it is, reader! Six thousand miles of water, water, water, and often never a sign of life in the sky above or in the sea below.

      There was, as I have said, but a light wind to begin with, and it was dead astern, so that stunsails were set, and the great ship looked like some wonderful bird of the main, as she sailed, with her wings out-spread, eastward and eastward ho!

      But before noon the sky in the west began to darken, and great rock-shaped or castellated clouds rolled up from the horizon. Snow-white were they on top, where the sun's rays struck them, but dark and black below.

      "Snug ship!" was the order now.

      In came the stunsails, the men working right merrily, and singing as they worked. In came royals and top-gallant sails, and close-reefed were the topsails. The captain was no coward, but right well he knew that the storm coming quickly up astern would be no child's play.

      Nor was it.

      A vivid flash of lightning and great-gun thunder first indicated the approach of the gale.

      Then away in the west a long line of foam was seen approaching. In an inconceivably short space of time it struck the ship with fearful violence, and though she sprung forward like a frightened deer and dipped her prow into a huge wave, she seemed engulfed in raging seas. The skipper had battened down, but so much water had been taken on board that the good clipper could not for a time shake herself clear. Perhaps the shivered bulwarks helped to save the ship.

      In a few minutes she was rushing before the wind at a good twelve knots an hour.

      "What a blessing it is," said Captain Wilson, "that we got snug in time!"

      "Yes, sir," said the mate, "and it's an ill wind that blows nobody good. Why, this gale is all in our favour, and will help us along."

      Our heroes had far from a pleasant time, however, for the next few days. Then wind and sea went down, and peace reigned once more on the decks, and in the rigging of the good ship Ocean's Pride.

      The splendid cities they visited when the vessel at last arrived in Australia quite dazzled our boys. And as the English language was spoken everywhere they felt quite at home.

      Captain Wilson seemed to take a pride in having Duncan and Conal with him, and he introduced them as friends wherever he went.

      Both lads were handsome, and in the city of Melbourne a rumour got abroad that they were of noble birth, and were serving before the mast for the mere romance of the thing. Well, even the Earl of Aberdeen was once found in the guise of an ordinary seaman; but there was something more than romance in our heroes' situation. However, the report, which they always contradicted, did them no harm, and they were invited to more houses than one, being asked, moreover, to come in their sailor's clothes.

      The boys obeyed. In fact they had none other, but they had a kind of best suit, and very well the broad blue collar and black sailor's-knotted handkerchief became their handsome young faces.

      I don't think I am far wrong in saying that some of the Australian ladies fell in love with them.