"Not exactly; but to make a long story short--"

"When you talk of cutting anything short, we are in for a yarn," said Jack.

"And you are sure to interrupt him in the middle of it," said Fritz.

"Well, in two words," said Willis, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, "I was cruising about the shipyards, looking if there was a condemned craft likely to suit us--some of them had gun-shot wounds in their timbers, others had been slewed up by a shoal--and, to cut the matter short--"

"Another yarn," suggested Jack.

"I luffed up beside the hull of a cutter-looking craft that had been completely gutted. But, changed and dilapidated as that hull is, I recognized it at once to be that of the _Nelson_. Now do you believe in miracles?"

"But are you sure, Willis?"

"Suppose you met Ernest or Frank in the street to-morrow, pale, meagre, and in rags, would you recognize them?"

"Most assuredly."

"Well, by the same token, sailors can always recognize a ship they have sailed in. They know the form of every plank and the line of every bend. There are hundreds of marks that get spliced in the memory, and are never forgotten. But in the present case there is no room for any doubt, a portion of the figure head is still extant, and the word _Nelson_ can be made out without spectacles."

"But how did it get there?"

"You know, Master Fritz, it could not have told me, even if I had taken the trouble to inquire."

"Very true, Willis."

"I was determined, however, to find it out some other way, so I steered for a cafe near the harbor, where the pilots and long-shore captains go to play at dominoes. I was in hopes of picking up some stray waif of information, and, sooth to say, I was not altogether disappointed."

"Another meeting, I'll be bound," said Jack.

"My falling in with the _Nelson_ astonished you, did it not?"

"Rather."

"Then I'll bet my best pipe that this one will surprise you still more. You recollect my comrade, Bill, _alias_ Bob, of the _Hoboken_?"

"Yes, perfectly."

"Then I met him."

"What! the man who had both his legs shot off, and died in consequence of his wounds?" inquired Jack.

"The same."

"And that was afterwards thrown overboard with a twenty-four pound shot tied to his feet!" exclaimed Fritz.

"The same."

At this astonishing assertion the young men regarded Willis with an air of apprehension.

"You think I am mad, no doubt, do you not?"

"Whatever can we think, Willis?"

"I admit that my statement looks very like it at first sight, but still you are wrong, as you will see by-and-by. I could scarcely believe my eyes when I saw him. 'Is that you, Bill Stubbs,' says I, 'at last?'

"'Lor love ye!' says he, 'is that you, Pilot?'

"He then took hold of my hand, and gave it such a shake as almost wrenched it off.

"'Where in all the earth did you hail from?' he said. 'I thought you were dead and gone?'

"'And I thought you were the same,' said I, 'and no mistake.'

"'Alive and hearty though, as you see, Pilot; only a little at sea amongst the _mounseers_.'

"'But what about the _Hoboken_?' says I.

"'What _Hoboken_?' says he.

"'Were you not aboard a Yankee cruiser some months back?'

"'Never was aboard a Yankee in all my life,' says Bill.

"And no more he was, for he never left the _Nelson_ till she was high and dry in Havre dockyard; so, the short and the long of it is, that I must have been wrong in that instance."

"So I should think," remarked Fritz.

"Yet the resemblance was very remarkable; the only difference was a carbuncle on the nose, which the real Bill has and the other has not, but which I had forgotten."

"Like Cicero," remarked Jack.

"Another Admiral?" inquired Willis, drily.

"No, he was only an orator."

"Bill soon satisfied me that he was the very identical William Stubbs, and that the other was only a very good imitation."

"He did not receive you with a punch in the ribs, at all events, like the apocryphal Bill," remarked Jack.

"No; but what is more to the purpose, he told me that, after having struggled with the terrible tempest off New Switzerland--which you recollect--the _Nelson_ found herself at such a distance, that Captain Littlestone resolved to proceed on his voyage, and to return again as speedily as possible.

"'We arrived at the Cape all right,' added Bill, 'landed the New Switzerland cargo, and sailed again with the Rev. Mr. Wolston on board. A few days after leaving the Cape, we were pounced upon by a French frigate; the _Nelson_, with its crew, was sent off as a prize to Havre, and here I have been ever since,' said Bill, 'a prisoner at large, allowed to pick up a living as I can amongst the shipping.'"

"And the remainder of the crew?" inquired Fritz.

"Are all here prisoners of war."

"And the Rev. Mr. Wolston and the captain?"