"That's just what I want," cried the boy, vehemently. "_Will_ you take me, sir?"
"Run away from home, of course," muttered the officer. "That's what comes of reading _Robinson Crusoe_--they all do it. Well, my lad, as I see it's too late to put you ashore now, what do you want to ship as? Ever at sea before?"
"No, sir; but I'll take any place you like to give me."
And down went the name of "Frank Austin," under the printed heading of "Working Passenger." The officer went off with the paper, the sailors dispersed, and Frank was left alone.
Gradually the countless lights of New York, Brooklyn, and Jersey City sank behind, as the vessel neared the great gulf of darkness beyond the Narrows. Tompkins Light, Fort Lafayette, Sandy Hook, slipped by one by one. The bar was crossed, the light-ship passed, and now no sound broke the dreary silence but the rush of the steamer through the dark waters, with the "Highland Lights" watching her like two steadfast eyes.
Of what was the lonely boy thinking as he stood there on the threshold of his first voyage? Did he picture to himself, swimming, through a hail of Dutch and English cannon-shot with the dispatch that turned the battle, the round black head of a little cabin-boy who was one day to be Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovel? Did he see a vast dreary ice-field outspread beneath the cold blue arctic sky, and midway across it the huge ungainly figure of a polar bear, held at bay with the butt of an empty musket by a young middy whose name was Horatio Nelson? Was it the low sandy shores of Egypt that he saw, reddened by the flames of a huge three-decker, aboard of which the boy Casabianca
"stood on the burning deck, Whence all but him had fled"?
Or were his visions of an English "reefer" being thrashed on his own ship by a young American prisoner, who was thereafter to write his name in history as "Salamander" Farragut? Far from it. Frank's thoughts were busy with the home he had left; and amid the cold and darkness, its cozy fireside and bright circle of happy faces rose before him more distinctly than ever.
"Wonder if they've missed me yet? The boys'll be going out to the coasting hill presently to shout for me: and sister Kate (dear little pet!), she'll be wondering why brother Frankie don't come back to finish her sled as he promised. And what distress they'll all be in till they get my first letter! and--"