John Phillips, her captain, was a bluff, ruddy-visaged, jolly little man, with cheeks turned red by exposure to sun and sea-breeze. He had three mates; the senior, Mr. Samuel Quail, was a plain, honest, rough seaman, who expected next voyage to have a ship of his own; the second, Mr. Foster; but the third was Adrian Manfredi, an Italian, a quiet and rather gentlemanly young man, of whom we shall hear more an on. The _Hermione_ had a surgeon, Leslie Heriot, a Scotsman, of course, and F.R.C.S.E.; a boatswain, carpenter, blacksmith, and a crew of a somewhat mingled kind, as we shall have unfortunate cause to show ere long. She was bound for Singapore, but was to touch at the Isle of France on her way out. Her cabin was handsome and spacious, and little cabins, called state-rooms, opened off it with sliding doors. Ethel, Rose, and Nance Folgate had one of them. Mr. Scriven Basset and Hawkshaw had the berth opposite. The others were occupied by the officers of the ship, and all bade fair to form a pleasant little community during the long voyage before them. For two days the _Hermione_ lay at anchor off Deal; on the third day she put to sea. By this time Ethel and Rose had nearly got what Captain Phillips bluntly termed "their sea-legs under them," and sat on the quarter-deck seats after breakfast, well muffled in cloaks; for though a lovely May sun was shining on the rippling sea, and all over the fertile coast of Kent, the atmosphere was chill, as the breeze swept over the watery Downs. The day was charming, the wind was fair, and, with everything set upon her that would draw, even to her topgallant studding-sails rigged aloft, the _Hermione_ flew before it. The chalky cliffs of Kent; Dungeness lighthouse, with its miles of shingly headland; gay Brighton, with its far extent of sandy bay, that stretches from Beechy Head to Selsea Hill; the chalky ranges that look down on the wooded weald of Sussex--were soon passed, and ere long the cliffs of the Isle of Wight, gilded by the evening sun, rose on the starboard bow. Rose Basset, about whom, attracted by her girlish beauty and _espièglerie_, the young Scotch surgeon and the Italian mate were both disposed to hover, asked questions from time to time--those silly, but, perhaps, natural questions which landfolks will ask on board ship, which, somehow, did not sound quite so silly when asked by the rosy lips of such a pretty girl as Rose--while poor Ethel remained seated in silence, with her eyes fixed on the distant coast, and wondering how far Laurel Lodge and Acton-Rennel were beyond those shadowy cliffs of chalk.