Chapter 72

Old Jack Bloater, the pilot from Selsey, had drunk his last horn of grog at the binnacle, and left us with every wish for "an 'appy journey--a bong woyage, as the monseers called it, and that we would soon give them Roosians a skewerin'." And now I knew that many a day, and week, and month, it might be years, filled up by the perils and stormy passages of a life of campaigning, must inevitably pass ere I should again hear Louisa's voice, before I had her hand in mine, and looked into her tender eyes again--if I was…