On the back of the letter was a note in Mannering's
handwriting. 'Old Chatterji kept his promise. I had quite a long
conversation with him in the ballroom last night. Everybody thought I
was drunk or mad to be talking Hindustani, apparently to empty air.
However, that's the last of him. I've done with the East.'".

"You make him more a man of mystery than ever," I exclaimed.

"I can't help it," said Forrest. "Perhaps his old tutor really did
appear to him. Perhaps Mannering was mad. Who knows? Both are dead.
However, he seems to have carried out his intention of not returning to
India. Ram Krishna Roy disappeared from that time forth, and Julian
Mannering took his place. He seems to have been doing nothing at San
Francisco at the time, but a little later he appears to have accepted an
appointment as engineer to a mine in Arizona. He left the berth suddenly
a few months later, owing to some trouble about the wife of one of the
miners. The miner was shot, and his comrades were so incensed that
Mannering had to depart hot-foot. Then for awhile I can only guess at
his occupation from some newspaper cuttings which he had preserved.
These point to his identification with the leader of a gang of
desperadoes whose most notable exploit was the successful holding up of
a train which had a considerable quantity of specie on board."

"I remember him describing the affair," said Evie, "though he
represented himself as on the side of the attacked."

"The only assistance he gave to the plundered was to assist them to a
better land by the aid of his gun. He escaped, though, and made his way
to Australia, and once again he resumed the practice of his
profession,--mining engineering. For three or four years he was engaged
at a newly-opened mine in the northern territory of West Australia. But
instinct was too strong for him. He must really have had a strong dash
of the blood of some of those Indian hill-tribe freebooters in his
veins, for he never seems to have been able to resist the prospect of
plunder, and the likelihood of having to fight for it seems to have been
an additional inducement. Thus, at the mine, under his charge, it was
the custom to send, periodically, the gold extracted, under a strong
escort, to the nearest town, some forty miles distant. For a long time
these consignments were delivered with perfect safety. Then, after a
particularly rich vein had been struck, it became necessary to forward a
very large consignmen