On another day a ship was passed, "bound for Europe"--they had ceased to speak of Britain now--and all crowded to the side to hear her hailed. On she came, and each vessel backed her maintopsail and showed her colours, plunging stern down and head, their cutwaters dripping with foam, their bright copper, that rose to the bends, flashing in the sun, the sails of the stranger shivering, as the _Hermione_ kept the weather-gauge of her. "Ahoy!" came faintly from a trumpet over the sea; "what ship is that?" "The _Hermione_, of London--two months out--bound for Singapore. What ship are you?" "The _Robert Bruce_, of Glasgow, bound for Europe." "Where from?" "Batavia." "Report all well." "Aye, aye; good-bye." Then the latitude and longitude, chalked on a black board, would be shown over the quarter of each ship; the colours were dipped at the gaff-peak, the yard-heads filled, a parting cheer exchanged, and each left the other to plough through the waste of waters, and each, ere the sun set, would be "hull down" to the other, at the horizon. Then Rose hurried to her desk to record this trivial, but, to her, important episode; but, alas! events were soon to occur which would make her diary, if kept amid them, the most startling work of the kind ever penned by a human hand--especially a hand so small and so pretty as hers. That the young Scotch surgeon, Dr. Leslie Heriot, was very much captivated by Rose was evident to all in the cabin; but Rose was so accustomed to have plenty of admirers to talk to, laugh, and flirt with, when on shore, that to have an acknowledged dangler on board ship seemed nothing unusual, and she accepted his attentions accordingly. She conceived it to be a penchant that had begun with the voyage, and would end with it; but, being less volatile than she was, to our young M.D. and F.R.C.S. of Edinburgh, it was a passion deeper than she thought, and of that she was to have ample proof ere long. Whether it was that the irritation always consequent to headwinds extended from the occupants of the after cabin to those of the forecastle bunks, we know not; but about this time a very perceptible difference began to manifest itself in the tone and conduct of the crew towards the passengers--towards each other generally, and the officers of the ship in particular; in short, a general insolence of bearing, to which the latter had been quite unaccustomed. We have stated that they were a mixed crew; that the coloured, the foreign, and the Yankee elements largely predominated among them; hence, they were not the kind of men to stand upon trifles.