We left the Bombay Castle in the Downs, where she remained until joined by several other India vessels.  On the arrival of a large frigate, who had orders to escort them as far as the Island of St Helena, they all weighed, and bore down the Channel before a strong S.E. gale.  The first ten days of a voyage there is seldom much communication between those belonging to the ship and the passengers; the former are too much occupied in making things shipshape, and the latter with the miseries of sea-sickness.  An adverse gale in the Bay of Biscay, with which they had to contend, did not at all contribute to the recovery of the digestive powers of the latter; and it was not until a day or two before the arrival of the convoy at Madeira that the ribbon of a bonnet was to be seen fluttering in the breeze which swept the decks of the Bombay Castle.

The first which rose up from the quarter-deck hatchway was one that encircled the head of Mrs Ferguson, the wife of the Presbyterian divine, who crawled up the ladder, supported on one side by her husband, and on the other by the assiduous Captain Drawlock.

“Very well done, ma’am, indeed!” said the captain, with an encouraging smile, as the lady seized hold of the copper stanchions which surrounded the sky-lights, to support herself, when she had gained the deck.  “You’re a capital sailor, and have by your conduct set an example to the other ladies, as I have no doubt your husband does to the gentlemen.  Now allow me to offer you my arm.”

“Will you take mine also, my dear,” said Mr Ferguson.

“No, Mr Ferguson,” replied the lady, tartly; “I think it is enough for you to take care of yourself.  Recollect your Scripture proverb of ’the blind leading the blind.’  I have no inclination to tumble into one of those pits,” added she, pointing to the hatchway.

Captain Drawlock very civilly dragged the lady to the weather-side of the quarter-deck, where, after in vain attempting to walk, she sat down on one of the carronade slides.

“The fresh air will soon revive you, ma’am; you’ll be much better directly,” observed the attentive captain.  “I beg your pardon one moment, but there is another lady coming out of the cuddy.”

The cabins abaft the cuddy, or dining-room, were generally occupied by the more distinguished and wealthy passengers (a proportionate sum being charged extra for them).  The good people of Glasgow, with a due regard to economy, had not run themselves into such unnecessary expenses for the passage of Mr and Mrs Ferguson.  Mr Revel, aware of the effect produced by an appearance of wealth, had taken one of them for his daughters.  The other had been secured by Miss Tavistock, much to the gratification of the captain, who thus had his unmarried ladies and his chronometers both immediately under his own eye.

The personage who had thus called away the attention of the captain was Isabel Revel, whom, although she has already been mentioned, it will be necessary to describe more particularly to the reader.