g away by then.

I, who was chief officer of the vessel, was pacing the poop under the
awning, when I saw a lady and gentleman approaching the vessel. They
spoke to the mate of a French barque which lay just ahead of us, and I
concluded that their business was with that ship, till I saw the
Frenchman, with a flourish of his hat, motion towards the _White
Star_, whereupon they advanced and stepped on board.

I went on to the quarter-deck to receive them. The gentleman had the
air of a military man: short, erect as a royal mast, with plenty of
whiskers and moustache, though he wore his chin cropped. His companion
was a very fine young woman of about six and twenty years; above the
average height, faultlessly shaped, so far as a rude seafaring eye is
privileged to judge of such matters; her complexion was pale, inclined
to sallow, but most delicate, of a transparency of flesh that showed
the blood eloquent in her cheek, coming and going with every mood that
possessed her. She wore a little fall of veil, but she raised it when
her companion handed her over the side in order to look round and
aloft at the fabric of spar and shroud towering on high, with its
central bunting of house flag pulling in ripples of gold and blue from
the royalmast head; and so I had a good sight of her face, and
particularly of her eyes.

I never remember the like of such eyes in a woman. To describe them as
neither large nor small, the pupils of the liquid dusk of the
Indian's, the eyelashes long enough to cast a silken shadow of
tenderness upon the whole expression of her face when the lids
dropped--to say all this is to convey nothing; simply because their
expression formed the wonder, strangeness, and beauty of them, and
there is no virtue in ink, at all events in my ink, to communicate it.
I do not exaggerate when I assure you that the surprise of the beauty
of her eyes when they came to mine and rested upon me, steadfast in
their stare as a picture, was a sort of shock in its way, comparable
in a physical sense to one's unexpected handling of something slightly
electric. For the rest, her hair was very black and abundant, and of
that sort of deadness of hue which you find among the people of Asia.
I cannot describe her dress. Enough if I say that she was in mourning,
but with a large admixture of white, for those were the hot weeks in
Sydney.

"Is the captain on board?" inquired the gentleman.

"He is not, sir."

"When do you expect h