On Friday, September the 4th, we embarked on the steamer Volturno , employed by the French Messageries Impériales , and in three days more we were at Marseilles, having no care on our minds except that abominable deceitful compass, which we had mislaid somewhere and could not now examine; but its inexplicable behaviour exercised my mind fearfully. On the 9th of September, in the evening, we arrived at Hamburg.

I cannot describe to you the astonishment of Martha or the joy of Gräuben.

“Now you are a hero, Axel,” said to me my blushing fiancée, my betrothed, “you will not leave me again!”

I looked tenderly upon her, and she smiled through her tears.