The younger of the lieutenants took off his cap most politely, eyeing the fair passengers with as much respect as he gave cool indifference to the cadets; the other, who was a careful-like, working first luff, said directly to Mr Finch—“Well, sir, you seemed inclined to lead us a bit of a chase—but I don’t think,” added he, smiling from the Indiaman to the brig, “you’d have cost us much trouble after all!” Here Finch hurried out his explanation, in a half-sulky way, when the naval man cut him short by saying that “Captain Wallis desired to know” if we had touched at St Helena. “May I ask, sir,” went on the officer, finding we had preferred the Cape, “if _you_ command this vessel—or is the master not on deck—Captain—Captain Wilson, I think you said?” The mate said something in a lower voice, and the lieutenant bared his head more respectfully than before, seeing the Company’s ensign, which had been lowered half-apeak while the boat was under our side; after which Finch drew him to the capstan, telling him, as I guessed, the whole affair of the schooner, by way of a great exploit, with hints of her being a pirate or suchlike. The brig’s officer, however, was evidently too busy a man, and seemingly in too great a hurry to get back, for listening much to such a rigmarole, as he no doubt thought it; they had been at the Cape, and were bound for St Helena again, where she was one of the cruisers on guard; so that what with Finch’s story, and what with the crowd round the second lieutenant, all anxious to get the news, I saw it wouldn’t cost Westwood and me great pains to keep clear of notice. There were some riots in London, and three men hanged for a horrid murder, the Duke of Northumberland’s death, not to speak of a child born with two heads, or something—all since we left England. Then there was Lord Exmouth come home from Algiers, and Fort Hattrass, I think it was, taken in India, which made every cadet prick up his ears; Admiral Plampin was arrived at the Cape of Good Hope, too, in the Conqueror, seventy-four, and on his way steering for St Helena, to take Sir Pulteney Malcolm’s place. All of a sudden, I heard the young luff begin to mention a captain of a frigate’s having been shot two months ago, by his own first lieutenant, on Southsea Beach, and the lieutenant being supposed to have gone off in some outward-bound ship. “By the bye,” said the officer to Mr Rollock, “you must have left about that time—did you touch at Portsmouth?” “Why, yes,” answered the planter, “we did. What were the parties’ names?” I edged over to Westwood near the head of the companion, and whispered to him to go below to our berth, in case of their happening to attend to us more particularly; and the farther apart we two kept, the better, I thought. The officer at once gave Captain Duncombe’s name, but didn’t remember the other, on which he turned to his first lieutenant with, “I say, Mr Aldridge, d’you recollect the