made about you. I shall, of course, report the matter to Captain
Stuart, and he must act as he thinks fit. But, in the meantime, I
should advise you to say nothing of the share which you have had in
the matter to any one. You must have those gashes you have got
plastered up. But I will speak to the surgeon. Do you know the name of
the English officer concerned?"

"Yes, sir, he was Lieutenant Tewson of the Grenadier Guards. We only
exchanged a few words before he went away, but he begged us to go and
see him."

"I should advise you to keep away from him altogether, until the
matter has blown over," Mr. Hethcote said. "Did you give him your
names?"

"No, sir, we had no time."

"All the better," Mr. Hethcote said. "It will, of course, come out in
the course of the inquiry that two midshipmen were concerned, and it
is just as well that he cannot give your names. I expect the ship to
be ordered up to Constantinople in a day or two, and I hope we may be
off before any inquiries are made. One can never say how these
big-wigs may take things. Sir George Brown is a tremendous martinet,
and he may consider that it would have been far better that five
officers, who chose to go to a gambling-house, should be killed, than
that Gallipoli, full as it is of valuable stores, and munitions of
war, should run the risk of being destroyed by fire. There, now, go
off to the surgeon, and get your faces strapped up, and then ask him
to come to me at once. If you two young gentlemen go on as you have
begun, you are not likely to live to obtain eminence in your