newspapers got hold of the yarn, and made a lot of fuss about it, they
might upset a certain marriage that I've very much set my heart upon."

Captain Kettle looked puzzled. "I don't seem to quite follow you, sir."

"You shall hear the tale from the beginning. We have plenty of time
ahead of us just now. You remember the wreck of the _Rangoon_?"

"She was coming home from East Indian ports, wasn't she, and got on fire
somewhere off Cape Guardafui? But that'll have been twenty years back,
in the old overland days, before the Ditch was opened. Only about ten of
her people saved, if I remember."

"That's about right," said Wenlock, "though it's twenty years ago now.
She was full of Anglo-Indians, and their loss made a great sensation at
the time. Amongst others was a Colonel Anderson, and his wife, and their
child Teresa, aged nine; and what made their deaths all the more sad was
the fact that Anderson's elder brother died just a week before, and he
would have come home to find a peerage and large estates waiting
for him."

"I can feel for that man," said Kettle.

"I can feel most for the daughter," said Wenlock.

"How do you mean, sir?"

"Well, Colonel Anderson's dead, and his wife's dead, but the daughter
isn't, or at any rate she was very much alive twelve months ago, that's
all. The whole lot of them, with others, got into one of the _Rangoon's_
boats, and after frizzling about at sea till they were nearly starved,
got chucked on that South Arabian coast (which you say is so rocky and
dangerous), and were drowned in the process. All barring Teresa, that
is. She was pulled out of the water by the local niggers, and was
brought up by them, and I've absolutely certain information that not a
year ago she was living in Dunkhot as quite a big personage in her way."

"And she's 'My Lady' now, if she only knew?"

"Well, not that. The title doesn't descend in the female line, but
Colonel Anderson made a will in her favor after she was born, and the
present earl, who's got the estates, would have to shell out if she
turned up again."

"My owners, in their letter, mentioned that you were a solicitor. Then
you are employed by his lordship, sir?"

Mr. Wenlock laughed. "Not much," he said. "I'm on my own hook. Why, hang
it all, Captain, you must see that no man of his own free will would be
idiot enough to resurrect a long-forgotten niece just to make himself
into a beggar."

"I don't see why not, sir, if he got to kn