"What's the matter, Phil?" said a bluff voice, and a heavy-featured officer of about forty looked at him in a half-amused manner. "Matter? Matter? Nothing; nothing at all." "Bah! don't tell me. The old game, Phil. Is she nice-looking?" "Beautiful!" cried the young officer excitedly. "Ah! that's how I used to speak of Mrs Captain Otway," said the heavy-looking officer cynically; "but, my dear Phil, with all due respect to the sharer of my joys and the sorrows of going out to this horrible hole, Mrs Captain Otway does not look beautiful now." "Otway, you are a brute to that woman. She is a thoroughly true-hearted lady, and too good for you." "Much, Phil--much too good. Poor woman, it was hard upon her, with all her love of luxury and refinement, that she should be forced by fate to marry the poor captain of a marching regiment." "Sent out to guard convicts in a penal settlement, eh?" "Yes, to be sure. Oh, dear me! I shall be heartily glad when we are settled down and have had a week at sea." "Oh, I don't know. I think time passes quite quickly enough. I say, Otway, do you think, if you asked her, Mrs Otway would lend a helping hand to those two ladies? They seem very strange and desolate on board here." "My wife? Impossible, Phil; she is in her berth already, declaring that she is sea-sick, when all the time it is fancy." "How do you know?" "How do I know? Because she never is; it is so as to get out of the misery and confusion of the first day. Look here, boy, I'm always glad to help you, though. Shall I do?" "You do? What for?" "To go down and try and set your last enslavers at their ease." "Don't be idiotic." "Nice way for a subaltern to speak to his commanding officer, sir." "I was not speaking to my commanding officer, but to my old companion, Jack Otway." "Oh, I see! I say, Phil, which of the fair ones is it--Juno or Hebe?" "Don't talk nonsense." "All right. Who are they?" "I can't find out yet. The captain gave me their names, that's all. Hist! here is their maid." Just then Thisbe, who had been below, creeping off quietly to make things a bit comfortable, as she called it, came on deck, having missed Mrs Hallam and Julia, expecting to find them where she had left them, leaning over the bulwarks; and full of haste, as she had found that there was at last something like a pleasant meal spread in the principal cabin. "It's very muddly," she muttered to herself, "and I'd give something for a snug little room where I could make them a decent cup of tea. And this is being at sea, is it?--sea that Tom Porter says is so lovely. Poor wretch!"