des in arms. His name
is Hybati; he's a Maratha."

"What's he jabbering about?"

The man was talking rapidly and earnestly.

"He says, captain," returned Diggle, with a smile, "that he hopes you
will send and fetch the crew's rice on board. They won't eat our
food--afraid of losing caste."

"I'll be hang if I launch the longboat again. The grab won't live another
five minutes in this sea, and I wouldn't risk two of my crew against a
hundred of these dirty Moors."

"They'll starve otherwise, captain."

"Well, let 'em starve. I won't have any nonsense aboard my ship. Beggars
mustn't be choosers, and if the heathen can't eat good honest English
vittles they don't deserve to eat at all."

Diggle smiled and explained to Hybati that his provisions must be left to
their fate. Even as he spoke a heavy sea struck the vessel athwart, and,
amid cries from the Marathas she keeled over and sank.

When the strangers had dried themselves, Diggle inquired of Hybati how he
came to be in his present predicament. The Maratha explained that he had
been in command of Angria's fortress of Suwarndrug, which was so strong
that he had believed it able to withstand any attacks. But one day a
number of vessels of the East India Company's fleet had appeared between
the mainland and the island on which the fortress was situated, and had
begun a bombardment which soon reduced the parapets to ruins. The chief
damage had been done by an English ship. Hybati and his men had made the
best defense they could, but the gunners were shot down by musket fire
from the round tops of the enemy, and when a shell set fire to a thatched
house within the fort, the garrison were too much alarmed to attempt to
extinguish the flames; the blaze spread, a powder magazine blew up, and
the inhabitants, with the greater part of the soldiers, fled to the
shore, and tried to make their escape in eight large boats. Hybati had
kept up the fight for some time longer, hoping to receive succor; but
under cover of the fire of the ships the English commodore landed half
his seamen, who rushed up to the gate, and cutting down the sally port
with their axes forced their way in.

Seeing that the game was up, Hybati fled with thirty of his men, and was
lucky in pushing off in the grab, unobserved by the enemy. The winds,
however, proving contrary, the vessel had been blown northward along the
coast and then driven far out to sea. With the breaking of the monsoon a
violent