She sat on his sea-chest whilst he smoothed and prepared the bunk. It was a little cabin; the bunk was under a port-hole, and plenty of light came flashing in off the trembling, feathering sea. You might hear the tramp of feet overhead, and the thump of coils of rope flung off their pins. There were none of the garnishings which often make pathetic such interiors as this; when a young officer hangs up the picture of his wife with their first baby on her knee, neither of them to be kissed and clasped for months and months, even if God be merciful to the poor fellow and his ship; no rack full of pipes, no odds and ends of curios--in short, nothing ornamented the wall of Hardy's sea-bedroom but a long chart of the English Channel, which it was his custom to study when he lay in his bunk smoking, to get absolutely by heart the lights which gem the coast of our island, and the verdure-crowned terraces over the way. When the bunk was prepared he removed her hat and gave her a hair-brush, and took down a little square of mirror and held it up before her. He greatly admired the beauty and the abundance of her hair, which was parted on one side. "Nothing so refreshes one as to brush one's hair," said he. "How ill I look," she exclaimed. "How could you have recognised me so instantly?" and she lifted her eyes, full of caress, to his face. "Will you be strong enough to get into that bunk unhelped?" he asked. It was a low-seated bunk, and she looked at it and answered, "Yes." "Then I will leave you," said he, and he walked out hurriedly, and shut the door behind him. He went on deck to see how the captain was dealing with his ship and found the vessel sailing along, with her yards properly swung and everything right. The boat from which the people had been received was visible at the tail of the ship's wake. The captain had sent her adrift, which was sane or not in him, just as you think proper. The sailors were coiling down and otherwise busy; the four men had been taken into the forecastle, where they were eating and drinking and yarning to a few of the watch below about the burning of the Indiaman _Glamis Castle_. The moment Captain Layard saw Hardy he called him. "Who is the lady?" he asked. "Miss Julia Armstrong, the daughter of a retired commander in the Royal Navy," was the reply. "Where have you lodged her?" "In my cabin for the present, sir, till I receive your orders to get another one ready for her." "Oh, yes, have that done--have that done," the captain said in a smooth, perfectly sane voice. "Do you know what she was aboard the ship?" Now Hardy was like the squire in Dickens's exquisite sketch--"he would not tell a lie for no man!" At the same time he did not wish Captain Layard should know that Miss Armstrong had shipped as a second stewardess, so he replied she was going to Calcutta with a letter of introduction to the bishop of that place. Her father was poor, and the girl wanted to find something to do in India.