keeping malice, and Captain Wallis looked up at him gravely. "No," replied he; "no, Sir Dudley, I shouldn't have _chosen_ the thing; but in the mean time I'm only doing my duty. There's a gloomy turn in my mind by this time, no doubt; but you've no idea, Sir Dudley, how the thought of other people comes into one's head when he's years shut up--so _I_ may stand for many a one Buonaparte will never see more than myself, that'll ring him round surer than those rocks there, though they're dead and in their graves, Sir Dudley!" The Admiral shook his head, observing that Napoleon was no common man, and oughtn't to be judged as such. "Too many victories in that eye of his, I suspect, Captain Wallis," said he, "for either Plantation House or his own conscience to break his spirit!" "Ay, ay sir," answered the captain respectfully, "excuse me, Sir Dudley, but there it is--so long as he's got his victories to fall back upon, he can't see how, if he'd regarded common men more, with all belonging to them, he wouldn't have been here! Why did Providence shut him up in a dead volcano, with blue water round it, Sir Dudley, if it wasn't to learn somehow or other he was a man after all?" Sir Dudley Aldcombe shrugged his shoulders and looked to Lord Frederick, upon which he rose, and the two captains followed him out of the cabin; in five minutes I heard the side piped for the Admiral's leaving, and soon after the captain of the Hebe came below again. "This is a disagreeable affair of your old messmate's, Mr Collins," said he, seriously. "You are, perhaps, not aware that Captain Duncombe was a relative of my own, and the fact of his property having fallen by will to myself, rendered my position the more peculiarly disagreeable, had I been obliged not only to recognise Lieutenant Westwood here, but afterwards to urge proceedings against him, even if he were let off by court-martial. I cannot tell you how the sight of a stranger, as I thought, relieved me, sir!" "Indeed, Lord Frederick!" replied I, too much confused in the circumstances to say more. However, his lordship's manner soon set me at my ease, the old good-humoured smile coming over his fine features again, while he went on to offer me the place of his second lieutenant, who was going home very ill by one of the homeward bound Indiamen; adding, that Sir Dudley would confirm the appointment; indeed, he could scarce help himself, he said, as there was nobody else he could get at present. "You must be a thorough good sailor by this time, Collins," continued he, "if you have gone on at the rate you used to do. I remember how fond you were of having charge for a minute or two of the old Orion, or when I let you put her about in my watch. Why they called you 'young Green,' I never could understand, unless it was '_ut lucus a non lucendo_' as we used to say at Eton, you know. Well, what do you say?" Now, as you may suppose, the idea of boxing about St Helena,