id Desmond. "I should have liked of all things to accept
your offer, but I'm bound to stay for Diggle's trial, and that can't be
held until the fleet return."

"How long will that be?"

"I heard the admiral say he expected it would take a month to settle
everything at Gheria. He wants to keep the place in our hands, but Ramaji
Punt claims it for the Peshwa, and Captain Speke of the Kent told me that
it'll be very lucky if they come to an arrangement within a month."

"It's uncommonly vexatious. I can't wait a month. It'll take a week or
more to clean the Hormuzzeer's hull, and another to load her; in a
fortnight at the outside I hope to be on my way. Well, it can't be
helped. What will you do when the trial is over?"

"I don't know."

"Did Mr. Clive say anything about a cadetship?"

"Not a word. He only said that I should get a share of the Gheria prize
money."

"That's something to the good. Use it wisely. I came out to Calcutta
twenty years ago with next to nothing, and I've done well. There's no
reason why you should not make your fortune, too, if your health will
stand the climate. We'll have a talk over things before I sail."

A week later the Bridgewater arrived from Gheria, with Diggle on board.
He was imprisoned in the fort, being allotted far too comfortable
quarters to please Mr. Merriman. But Merriman's indignation at what he
considered the governor's leniency was changed to hot rage three days
later when it became known that the prisoner had disappeared. Not a trace
of him could be discovered. He had been locked in as usual one night, and
next morning his room was empty. Imprisonment was much less stringent in
those days than now; the prisoner was allowed to see visitors and to live
more or less at ease. The only clue to Diggle's escape was afforded by
the discovery that, at the same time that he disappeared, there vanished
also a black boy, who had been brought among the prisoners from Gheria
and was employed in doing odd jobs about the harbor.

Desmond had no doubt that this was Diggle's boy Scipio Africanus. And
when he mentioned the connection between the two, it was supposed that
the negro had acted as go-between for his master with the friends in the
town by whose aid the escape had been arranged. Among the large native
population of Bombay there were many who were suspected of being secret
agents of the French, and as Diggle was well provided with funds it was
not at all unlikely that hi