I declared in the most solemn and impassioned tones that I had not run away for wrong-doing, and that I had hidden in this ship for no other motive than to reach Tasmania. He inquired my name, and said: ‘Well, I don’t mind saying I like your looks. I believe you’re honest and there’s no ’arm in you. What does that there doctor mean by turning me into a jailor? I’m head-steward. That’s what I shipped for. He gets his living by looking after criminals at sea; and them as ain’t criminals, according to him, must be tarned into tarnkeys, is it? He be blowed! Ye’ve had a tidy spell down for’ards. Since Woolwich, hey? Well, the capt’n told me to give ye a mouthful of grub, and that looks well. I’ll turn the key upon ye, because it’s the capt’n’s orders. But as for that there doctor--he be blowed!’ He went out, leaving me easy, I may say almost happy, so different had been the usage I had received from what I had expected; though, to be sure, the doctor had yet to settle accounts with me. But what could he do? If he kept me locked up, I was still in the ship that was carrying Tom across the seas. If he threatened me with the gangway, there was my sex. I might know--nay, I would swear, myself a sailor’s daughter--that there was never a seaman on board that ship who would allow a hand to be lifted against a girl. I took a view of the little cabin I was in. It was a steerage-berth, designed for the use of second-class passengers. Two mahogany bunks were affixed to the ship’s wall under the circular porthole. In a corner near the door was a convenient arrangement of drawers and wash-stand and a flap, which, on lifting, I found to be a looking-glass. I went to the bunks to look through the porthole at the sea, and beheld in the upper bunk, on the bare boards, a large parcel. I could scarcely credit my sight. It was, in truth, the parcel of wearing apparel I had made up when I put on my boy’s clothes and addressed to the care of the captain of this ship and left in my Woolwich lodging, on the bare chances of my landlady sending it to the vessel! I say it was truly extraordinary that those clothes should be lying in the very cabin in which I was now lodged. Whilst I stood looking at the parcel and musing upon the associations it recalled, and speculating upon the ideas the landlady had formed of me, the key was turned and the steward entered. ‘Here’s some lush and a mouthful of grub for you,’ said he. ‘It isn’t every stowaway who’s waited on by a head-steward, I can tell you. But it’s the cap’n’s orders, and luck comes with looks in this blushen universe.’