Part 30 (2/2)

Colonel Shepherd said; ”and a singularly fortunate one. I feel quite proud of him. It was upon my advice that he enlisted; but if any one had told me, at the time, that he would be a captain in two years, I should have said that it was absolutely impossible.”

”Yes,” Colonel Ripon replied, ”his luck has been marvelous; but if ever a fellow deserved it, he did. I have a very warm liking--I may say an affection--for him. He saved my life, when I was attacked by some Ghazis here, and must have been killed, had it not been for his promptness, and coolness. He was wounded, too; and we were nursed together, here. Since then I have seen a great deal of him and, the more I see him, the more I like him.

”Do you know anything of him, previous to the time of his enlisting? You told me he joined your regiment, on the day when it arrived at Calcutta. I know nothing of his history, before that.

The subject never happened to occur, in conversation; and it was one upon which I naturally should 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 s.h.i.+p from being captured, by the Malays. I happened to meet its captain on sh.o.r.e, 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 s.h.i.+p, 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 pa.s.s well, as some gentleman's son who had got into a sc.r.a.pe 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 troops.h.i.+p, 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 birth. Not, mind you, that I like or esteem him one iota the less, for what you tell me.

Indeed, on the contrary; for there is all the more merit in his having made his way, alone. Still, you astonish me.

”They tell me,” he said, with a smile, ”that he is wonderfully like me but, strangely enough, he reminds me rather of my wife. You remember her, Shepherd? For you were stationed at Meerut, at the time I married her there.”

Colonel Shepherd nodded and, for a few minutes, the two friends sat silent; thinking over the memories which the words had evoked.

”Strange, is it not,” Colonel Ripon went on, arousing himself, ”that the child of some pauper parents should have a resemblance, however distant, to me and my wife?”

”Curiously enough,” Colonel Shepherd said, ”the boy was not born of pauper parents. He was left at the door of the workhouse, at Ely, by a tramp; whose body was found, next morning, in one of the ditches. It was a stormy night; and she had, no doubt, lost her way after leaving the child. That was why they called him William Gale.

”Why, what is the matter, Ripon? Good heavens, are you ill?”

Colonel Shepherd's surprise was natural. The old officer sat rigid in his chair, with his eyes open and staring at his friend; and yet, apparently, without seeing him. The color in his face had faded away and, even through the deep bronze of the Indian sun, its pallor was visible.

Colonel Shepherd rose in great alarm, and was about to call for a.s.sistance when his friend, with a slight motion of his hand, motioned to him to abstain.

”How old is he?” came presently, in a strange tone, from his lips.

”How old is who?” Colonel Shepherd asked, in surprise. ”Oh, you mean Gale! He is not nineteen yet, though he looks four or five years older. He was under seventeen, when he enlisted; and I rather strained a point to get him in, by hinting that, when he was asked his age, he had better say under nineteen. So he was entered as eighteen, but I know he was more than a year younger than that.

”But what has that to do with it, my dear old friend? What is the matter with you?”

”I believe, Shepherd,” Colonel Ripon said solemnly, ”that he is my son.”

”Your son!” his comrade exclaimed, astonished.

”Yes, I believe he is my son.”

”But how on earth can that be?” his friend asked. ”Are you sure that you know what you are saying? Is your head quite clear, old friend?”

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