it was a hot, stifling summer day, and perhaps whitechapel never looked more grimy, more squalid, more sorrowful, perforce from its pathetic contrast to the summer beauty of the skies.

the pavement was so hot that the heat seemed to rise up, flouting itself in your very face.

in one particular alley, known as mulliner's rents, the heat seemed almost tropical. possibly the dense overcrowding of this quarter with human life enhanced the burning sensation of the thick air breathed out and breathed in again, unrefreshed, by multitudes of lungs. here, there, and everywhere human beings stood about idly. groups of untidy women, in twos and threes, gossiped; lazy men lolled against the houses, smoking in sullen silence; and for every grown-up person there were fully a dozen of squalid children playing, shouting, staring, and squabbling with a vigour no heat could abate.

there was little traffic, so to say, in mulliner's rents; it was quite select in that one single respect. nothing on wheels penetrated the unlovely quarter save a coster's barrow of fruit; unwholesome little yellow pears and cruelly green apples of the lowest type of apple-kind being the wares of the moment. it was truly a sad and sorrowful haunt, this of the man-made town; and so it seemed to the two travellers fresh from the god-made country—from the wholesome breezes of the caller salt air of northbourne—when they plunged into its midst.

'courage, captain!' said philip price, when he noticed the blanching of the elder man's brown face and the unutterable loathing of horror that spoke out of every feature. 'we've got to put our shoulder to the wheel, and leave no stone unturned to find alick, and carry him out of this pestilent hole.'

philip price, before his health broke down, had been for a few months doing duty as curate in a still more squalid colony of human nests than even this. when the sailor flinched, and hung back, philip strode forward, determined to conquer, unheeding the battery of stares turned upon himself and his companion by the inhabitants, and the free-and-easy comments, of which they were by no means chary.

already the captain and philip had that day spent many fruitless hours in the search, when they hit on a fresh clue and an address in mulliner's rents. but here, even, difficulties bristled, and the tide of hopelessness was setting in upon both men when a wretched old crone was dragged out of a public-house to confront them, with dazed eyes and with a hateful odour of gin oozing from her whole person.

'yes—well, yes,' she grudgingly admitted, in answer to the eager questions of the searchers; 'i does know a boy down with fever. what o' that? i ain't done no harm to him! he's 'ad the best i could offer; and five shillin's don't go far when there's sickness,' she ended, with a whimper, for she was maudlin with drink.

'take us to that boy at once!' commanded philip price; for the captain's agitation unmanned him for the moment.

the wretched woman, awed by philip's tone, complied. perhaps, also, she obeyed, half in fear of the policeman, who had stepped up to join the gentlemen, and half in hope of getting more silver to spend on more drink.

before half an hour was over alick carnegy was found. it was a terrible shock to the captain to recognise his boy in the squalid, dirty, delirious sufferer tossing wearily on a heap of sacks, on the grimy floor of an attic at the top of an evil-smelling, dilapidated house, to which the crone stumblingly conducted them.

'merciful powers!' he groaned in dismayed horror.

'hush!' enjoined philip. 'be as calm as you can. i believe the poor little chap is off his head; but, if there's a gleam of consciousness, it would send him over the precipice again to witness your agitation.'

there was small fear of the captain doing any further mischief; he was stunned into helplessness, and stood mute, trying to force himself to believe that the huddled heap of squalid misery was his very own son—smart, manly-looking alick carnegy. though the captain was thus helpless, philip price seemed to know exactly what to do, and how to do it.

getting the address of a doctor, he rushed off, in the first place, to fetch him. then a bedstead and clean bedding were hired in. in an hour or two more the grimy room was swept and tidied as far as possible; the window propped up to stay open; the hapless, dirty sufferer cleansed and made straight; and beside his bed sat a gentle-faced, trained nurse, whose wholesome presence seemed to transform the room.

'now, captain,' cheerily said philip, who looked another man in the excitement, 'you are going to take a bit of advice from me, i hope. you will go straight back to brattlesby by the night train. your invalid at home must not be forgotten; anxiety is not the best sort of tonic for her. and i mean to remain here with your boy.'

'god bless you, price!' the old sailor's voice trembled as he wrung philip's hand. 'i never knew it was in you! man, how one can be deceived! i thought your head was in the clouds, and that you didn't know your right hand from your left, practically speaking. yes, yes! i'll run down to-night, and to-morrow i can return. i can trust my boy to you. let nothing be spared; there's my purse. the doctor seemed a downright good sort of chap and she is worth a gold-mine!' he pointed to the nurse, who was deftly bathing alick's burning brow.

'what a splendid lad that price is! he's the very salt of the earth!' murmured the old captain, as he threaded his way later through the unsavoury streets, now ablaze with lights that enticed and beckoned forth misery to stalk out from every dark corner. 'he is a true christian—that's what it is! to think how my boys have ill-treated him, and here he is caring for alick so tenderly that the poor boy's mother couldn't have done more, had she been spared! that's what you call returning good for evil, with a vengeance! well, well, please god, i'll mend my own ways too! if i have my girl and my boy both restored to me, i'll be a different father to them from what i have been.'

it had been borne in upon the captain's mind, during the cloud of sorrow overshadowing his home, that he had, somehow, failed in his duty. and, with the courage that belongs only to the brave heart, he admitted his shortcomings.

there was tremendous excitement in northbourne when it was known that alick had actually been found. the bunk was besieged by an ever-growing crowd, anxious to have the news verified. and where was ned dempster? the captain himself had to assure them his next step would be to discover the hapless ned. yes, yes; ned also should be found and brought back. not a stone should be left unturned until he rescued ned likewise.

and the old sailor kept his word. on his return to london he and philip price took it in turn, between their spells of watching beside alick's sick-bed, to seek out the wandering half of the show-circus. time went on, but they were still unsuccessful, however. not until the fever died out, and alick, weak and exhausted, almost beyond building up, began to show faint signs of interest in his surroundings, could any questions be put to him. it was philip price who managed, without agitating the sufferer, to win from his feeble lips the name of the show. after that it was a tolerably easy matter to unearth its whereabouts.

on demanding ned's release, a series of denials met them as to the boy being with the establishment at all. a storm of furious resistance which followed had to be quelled by the stern detective who accompanied the captain in his raid upon the show. back in triumph to the whitechapel attic they carried the trembling ned, who had to be scoured and fed and clothed into his 'right mind' once again.

and this was running away secretly! thought each humiliated adventurer as they gazed, stony-eyed, at one another.

shortly after, when alick had crept sufficiently far out of the fever, looking a white shadow of his former self, the two boys were conveyed back to northbourne, where a genuinely hearty welcome awaited them from the fisher-folk. jerry blunt, indeed, had suggested a triumphal arch with welcome in letters tall and wide. but that notion was instantly quashed by wiser heads.

'we be thankful to see 'em back,' judicially said northbourne; 'but we ain't a-goin' to make "conquerin' heroes" of such young limbs!'

so it came to pass that the boys who thought it such a fine, manly thing to run away to sea, as boys will think, returned meekly, with shamed eyes, and hearts bounding joyfully at sight of the homes they had not dreamed were so dear until they had forfeited them, as they thought, for ever.