desired me to advance, and having asked me a few questions touching my name, age, &c., he paused, and, to my inexpressible alarm, took up a volume from the table, which was no other than that accursed piece of military codification of which I have made mention. Now, thought I, it comes, and all is over. After turning over the leaves for some seconds, he said, raising his head, “I suppose you are well acquainted with the contents of this volume?” Heaven forgive me! but the instinct of self-preservation was strong upon me, and I mumbled forth a very suspicious “Yes.” Ye generous casuists, who invent excuses for human frailty, plead for my justification. “Well,” continued he, closing the book, “conduct yourself circumspectly in the situation in which you are about to enter, and you will acquire the approbation of your superiors; you may now retire.” Those who can imagine the feelings of a culprit reprieved, after the fatal knot has been comfortably adjusted by a certain legal functionary; or those of a curate, with £50 per annum, and fifteen small children, on the announcement of a legacy of £10,000; or those of a respectable spinster of forty, on having the question unexpectedly popped; or, in short, any other situation where felicity obtrudes unlooked for, may form some idea of mine; I absolutely walked on air, relieved from this incubus, and gave myself up to the most delightful buoyancy of spirits. A few days more, and Mr. Cadet Francis Gernon found himself on board the _Rottenbeam Castle_, steering down Channel, and with tearful eyes casting a lingering gaze on the shores of old England. CHAPTER II. The first scene of this eventful drama closed with my embarkation on board the _Rottenbeam Castle_, bound for Bengal. Saving an Irish packet, this was the first ship on which I had ever set foot, and it presented a new world to my observation—a variety of sights and sounds which, by giving fresh occupation to my thoughts and feelings, served in some measure to banish the tristful remembrance of home. All, at first, was a chaos to me; but when the confusion incidental to embarkation and departure (the preliminary shake of this living kaleidoscope), a general clearing out of visitors, custom-house officers, bum-boat women, _et hoc genus omne_, had subsided, things speedily fell into that regular order characteristic of vessels of this description—each individual took up his proper position, and entered in an orderly manner on his prescribed and regular routine of duty; and I began to distinguish officers from passengers, and to learn the rank and importance of each respectively.