‘Where are you off to so early?’ I inquired. ‘I am going on board the _Ostrich_,’ he replied, ‘to try and get a sight of my friend Dunn, who is to cross to Burmah in her. Will you come with me?’ ‘It is where I am bound for. I am on my way to meet Miss Anstruther, my wife’s cousin.’ ‘Lucky dog!’ said Forster. He is one of those fellows who imagine that no age, position, or circumstances are powerful enough to prevent a man admiring a pretty woman. ‘If all I have heard about her from Dunn is true, you are not likely to have your house much to yourself whilst Miss Anstruther is in it, Norton.’ ‘Well, I shall go out of it, then,’ I answered, not over pleased at the notion of never being left in peace with Janie. ‘Dunn says she’s beautiful. I didn’t know you expected her in the _Ostrich_. He’ll never believe now that I went on board with the intention of seeing himself.’ ‘He must have but a small opinion of your friendship for him.’ ‘Ah, yes, perhaps; but this is not an ordinary occasion. From all I hear, Norton, Miss Anstruther must be—you’ll excuse my saying so—a regular out-and-outer.’ ‘Indeed! You know more about her than I do. She has not been above a week or ten days in Madras.’ ‘I know; but Dunn was introduced to her in England, and quite excited to find she had come out to this country. Will she remain long with you?’ ‘Till Colonel Anstruther returns from China,’ I replied, with an inward sigh. ‘Lucky fellow!’ repeated Forster, with a grin. ‘Don’t you wish he may lay his venerable bones there?’ I did not feel equal to pursuing this conversation in the strain which Forster evidently expected of me, and so I tried to turn it. ‘The tide is very high to-day,’ I remarked, as we rode into the fort, and came in sight of the sea. ‘By Jove! so it is; and yesterday it barely washed the landing-quay. What a sell it would be, Norton, if some day this sea, with its changeable tides, was to take it into its head to overflow the fort and flood the cantonment!’ ‘How _could_ it?’ I exclaimed, hastily. The idea is ridiculous, and as ridiculous my feeling annoyed at it, for I have never heard it mooted by any one before; and yet it is not a pleasant one; for the plain is so very level, and we have no protection whatever from the encroachments of the ocean. ‘Well, I don’t know,’ he answered; ‘but I think I’ve read of such things. It would be a regular washing for these poor devils in the fort, though, wouldn’t it?’ ‘Don’t talk of anything so horrible!’ I answered.