for heaven knew how long, didn't at all suit my liking--with the thought of the Seringapatam steering away for Bombay the whole time, and a hundred notions of Violet Hyde in India,--'twould have driven me madder than the Temple did Captain Wallis: but it was only the _first_ part of my mind I gave Lord Frederick. "What!" exclaimed he, with a flush over his face, and drawing up his tall figure, "you didn't suppose _I_ should remain here? Why, the Hebe is on her way for Calcutta and Canton, and will sail as soon as the Conqueror arrives at James Town with Admiral Plampin." "Your lordship is very kind," said I looking down to cover my delight; "and if I am not worthy of the post, it shan't be my fault, Lord Frederick." "Ah, very good!" said he smiling; "'tis an opportunity you oughtn't to let slip, Collins, let me tell you! For my own part, I should just as soon cut out a pirate in the Straits of Malacca as a French brig in the Channel; and there are plenty of them, I hear, there. As for a chase, sir, I flatter myself you won't easily see a finer thing than the Hebe spreading her cloth after one of those fast proas will be--I think you are just the fellow to make her walk, too, Mr Collins--pah! to compare a day on the Derby turf with _that_, would be a sin! You have no idea, sir, how one longs for a fair horizon again, and brisk breezes, when so ineffably tired out of all those ball-rooms, and such things as you see about town just now--only I fear I shall wish to be second lieutenant again, eh?" The noble captain of the Hebe turned to look out through the stern window to seaward, his face losing the weary sort of half-melancholy cast it had shown for the last minute, while his eye glistened; and it struck me how well-matched the Hebe and her commander were: you'd have said both had good blood in them, both being models to look at of their kind, and the frigate lifting under you at the moment, from the keel upward, with a check aloft in her main-topsail, that lifted her stem to the surge. A small telescope rolled off the sofa on to the cabin deck, and as I picked it up, another gust could be heard coming down St James' Valley from inside the island; through the gun-port one saw the trees wave over the hot white houses in the bright coloured little town, while the ship's canvass gave another flutter above decks. Lord Frederick laughed, and said, "Then, I suppose, we need say no more about it, Mr Collins, except referring once for all to Sir Dudley?" I bowed, and the upshot was, that, an hour or two after, I had my acting commission sent me from the Admiral, the same boat having called at the Podargus for my things; upon which Lord Frederick introduced me to the first lieutenant, and I found myself once more doing duty in the service--the Hebe standing out to leeward with the last light, just as the Podargus was tripping anchor to beat round again the other way. As for our friends from the burnt vessel,