couple of those men might be waiting
for me at the end of the wharf. I left the ship just a minute or two
before the sailors did. Then I met you. That meeting, my lad, was
my first step toward salvation. For the two men let you pass with my
portmanteau, which they didn't recognize, as I knew they would ME, and
supposed you were a stranger, and lay low, waiting for me. I, who went
into the gin-mill with the other sailors, was foolish enough to drink,
and was drugged and crimped as they were. I hadn't thought of that. A
poor devil of a ticket of leave man, about my size, was knocked down
for me, and," he added, suppressing a laugh, "will be buried, deeply
lamented, in the chancel of Dornton Church. While the row was going on,
the skipper, fearing to lose other men, warped out into the stream,
and so knew nothing of what happened to me. When they found what they
thought was my body, he was willing to identify it in the hope that
the crime might be charged to the crimps, and so did the other sailor
witnesses. But my brother Bill, who had just arrived here from Callao,
where he had been hunting for me, hushed it up to prevent a scandal.
All the same, Bill might have known the body wasn't mine, even though he
hadn't seen me for years."

"But it was frightfully disfigured, so that even I, who saw you only
once, could not have sworn it was NOT you," said Randolph quickly.

"Humph!" said Captain Dornton musingly. "Bill may have acted on the
square--though he was in a d----d hurry."

"But," said Randolph eagerly, "you will put an end to all this now. You
will assert yourself. You have witnesses to prove your identity."

"Steady, lad," said the captain, waving his pipe gently. "Of course I
have. But"--he stopped, laid down his pipe, and put his hands doggedly
in his pockets--"IS IT WORTH IT?" Seeing the look of amazement in
Randolph's face, he laughed his low laugh, and settled himself back in
his chair again. "No," he said quietly, "if it wasn't for my son, and
what's due him as my heir, I suppose--I reckon I'd just chuck the whole
d----d thing."

"What!" said Randolph. "Give up the property, the title, the family
honor, the wrong done to your reputation, the punishment"--He hesitated,
fearing he had gone too far.

Captain Dornton withdrew his pipe from his mouth with a gesture of
caution, and holding it up, said: "Steady, lad. We'll come to THAT by
and by. As to the property and title, I cut and run from THEM ten
years ag