As the skipper and I stood talking together, the passengers, who had learned from the stewards that we had been picked up during the night, came hurrying up on deck, one after another, full of curiosity to see the individuals who had joined the ship under such interesting circumstances; and I was duly introduced to them.  To take them in what appeared to be the recognised order of their social importance, they were, first, General Sir Thomas Baker, his wife, Lady Hetty Baker, and his rather elderly daughter, Phoebe, returning to India from furlough; Mrs Euphemia Jennings, the young wife of an important official, who had just left her only boy--a lad of five years of age--with friends in England, for his health's sake, and with her a niece of her husband--a Miss Flora Duncan, a most lovely girl of about sixteen.  Then came Mr and Mrs Richard Morton, people of some means, who were going to India to try their fortune at indigo planting, under the auspices of a friend and former schoolfellow of the husband, and who had sent home glowing accounts of the great things that might be done in that way by a man of energy with a reasonable amount of capital; and with them went their three children, Frank, Mary, and Susie, aged respectively eleven, eight, and six years.  And finally, there were Messrs. Fielder, Acutt, Boyne, Pearson, and Taylor--five young men ranging from seventeen to twenty-one years of age, who were going out to take up appointments in the Company's service.  All these people were very kind and nice to me, but I could not help being secretly amused at the fiery energy with which the general denounced what he characterised as "the criminal carelessness" of Captain Bentinck in turning me adrift in an unarmed schooner with a crew of only fourteen hands.