I suddenly remember that I have to get away. Now begins my
trouble again. I find four other persons to whom getting away is an
absolute necessity, and not one of them knows how he is going to achieve
it, and not one of them likes to broach the subject to ROSSHER. We try
the Captain, a bluff seaman, who replies, with a pleasant sort of
sea-doggishness, that "he is ready to take the ship wherever Mr. ROSSHER
orders him." At present Mr. ROSSHER hasn't issued any orders, but he
(the Captain) thinks he means sailing for Cherbourg to-morrow (Sunday)
early. Cherbourg!! The Purser, on being asked, can't say any more.

For one moment I see ROSSHER. I remind him that he promised to land me.
"Did I?" he says, with an air of quiet astonishment which is most
provoking. "Well, I don't know how I'm going to do it. We'll see--after
the QUEEN has gone." I catch at a first chance, and say, cajolingly, as
if suggesting a plan that he could have adopted long ago if he had only
thought of it--"Couldn't you send us off in a launch or the tender?" I
had ascertained the existence of these two boats in attendance, "After
the fireworks?" ROSSHER looks at me, thunderstruck. He simply says,
"Impossible!" and turns on his heel.

The fact is, when you get out to sea on board a great ship, the visitor
is in the power of the owners of the vessel, who have settled all their
arrangements for the comfort and amusement of two hundred-and-fifty
persons, and if a proposition is made which will interfere with these
laws of nautical Medes and Persians in the smallest degree, it is like
suggesting the slightest possible alteration, _pro tem._, in the solar
system. No help for it. I make up my mind philosophically. If they can't
put me on shore, they can't. It's a serious matter, it's the loss of
thousands, it's misery for a year, perhaps, it's ruin to a family,
but----I shall see the fireworks and illuminations, and have a cruise
to Cherbourg, where I don't particularly wish to go. In the meantime let
us look at the Review. I am temporarily resigned.

_The Review._--Which are the War-vessels? Where is the QUEEN? How silent
it all is. The yards are manned everywhere. Very pretty. Firing and
smoke in distance, hardly any noise, and though there must be cheering
somewhere, yet the wind blows it away from us and we hear scarcely a
sound. Dull. Through the glass we see the QUEEN'S Yacht passing along:
then as the ship swings round we turn and turn, and everybody