uld have felt a delicacy in asking
any questions--though I have sometimes wondered, in my own mind,
how he came to be penniless in Calcutta; as I suppose he must have
been, to have enlisted. Did you happen to hear anything about it?"

"Yes, indeed," Colonel Shepherd answered. "Curiously enough, he was
by no means penniless; as he had just received 100 pounds reward,
for the services he had rendered in preventing a ship from being
captured, by the Malays. I happened to meet its captain on shore,
the day I landed; and heard from him the story of the affair--which
was as follows, as nearly as I can recollect."

Colonel Shepherd then related, to his friend, the story of the
manner in which the brig--when chased by Malays--was saved, by
being brought into the reef, by Will.

"Naturally," he went on, "I was greatly interested in the story
and--expressing a wish to see the young fellow--he was brought off
that evening, after mess, to the Euphrates; and told us how he had
been wrecked on the island in a Dutch ship, from which only he, and
a companion, were saved. I was so struck with his conduct--and, I
may say, by his appearance and manner--that I took him aside into
my own cabin, and learned from him the full particulars of his
story. I don't think anyone else knows it for, when he expressed
his willingness to take my advice, and enlist, I told him that he
had better say nothing about his past. His manner was so good that
I thought he would pass well, as some gentleman's son who had got
into a scrape and, as I hoped that the time might come when he
might step upwards, it was perhaps better that it should not be
known what was his origin."

"But what was his origin, Shepherd? I confess you surprise me, for
I have always had an idea that he was a man of good family;
although in some strange way his education had been neglected for,
in fact, he told me one day that he was absolutely ignorant of
Latin."

"Well, Ripon, as you are a friend of the young fellow, and I know
it will go no further, I will tell you the facts of the case. He
was brought up in a workhouse, was apprenticed to a Yarmouth smack
man and--the boat being run down in a gale by a Dutch troopship, to
which he managed to cling, as the smack sank--he was carried in her
to Java. On her voyage thence, to China, he was wrecked on the
island I spoke of."

"You astound me," Colonel Ripon said, "absolutely astound me. I
could have sworn that he was a gentleman by