go, the youngest ensign in
the regiment.

It was curious to remember that in my youth I had always been considered
the fool of the family; most unjustly so considered when I look back at
my quick promotion owing to casualties, and at my long and prosperous
career in India, which I cannot but regard as the result of high
principles and abilities, to say the least of it, of not the meanest
order. On the point of returning to England, the trust Sir John had with
his usual shrewdness reposed in me was an additional proof, if proof
were needed, of the confidence I had inspired in him--a confidence which
seemed to have ripened suddenly at the end of his life, after many years
of hardly concealed mockery and derision. Just as I was finishing my
reflections and my breakfast, Dickson, one of the last joined
subalterns, came in.

"This is very awful," he said, so gravely that I turned to look at him.

"What is awful?"

"Don't you know?" he replied. "Haven't you heard about--Sir John--last
night?"

"Dead?" I asked.

He nodded; and then he said--

"Murdered in the night! Cathcart heard a noise and went in, and stumbled
over him on the floor. As he came in he saw the lamp knocked over, and a
figure rush out through the veranda. The moon was bright, and he saw a
man run across a clear space in the moonlight--a tall, slightly built
man in native dress, but not a native, Cathcart said; that he would take
his oath on, by his build. He roused the house, but the man got clean
off, of course."

"And Sir John?"

"Sir John was quite dead when Cathcart got back to him. He found him
lying on his face. His arms were spread out, and his dressing-gown was
torn, as if he had struggled hard. His pockets had been turned inside
out, his writing-table drawers forced open, the whole room had been
ransacked; yet the old man's gold watch had not been touched, and some
money in one of the drawers had not been taken. What on earth is the
meaning of it all?" said young Dickson, below his breath. "What was the
thief after?"

In a moment the truth flashed across my brain. I put two and two
together as quickly as most men, I fancy. _The jewels!_ Some one had got
wind of the jewels, which at that moment were reposing on my own person
in their old brown bag. Sir John had been only just in time.

"What was he looking for?" continued Dickson, walking up and down. "The
old man must have had some paper or other about him that he wanted to
get hold of