."--Captain Bewes took a sip at his grog, and over the rim
looked down the table towards Samuel, who nodded.

The Captain nodded back, set down his glass, and resumed. "Quite so.
The next thing is that Mr. Orchard, returning to deck two minutes
later and having to pass the door of Mr. Annesley's cabin on his way,
ran against an old Hindu beggar crouching there, fingering the
door-handle and about to enter--or so Orchard supposed, and kicked
him up the companion. He told me about it himself, next day, when we
found the cabin empty and I began to make inquiries. 'Now here,'
says you, 'here's a clue,' and I'm not denying but it may be one.
Only when you look into it, what does it amount to? Mr. Annesley--
saving your presence--was known for a stern man: you may take it for
certain he'd made enemies over there, and these Hindus are the devil
(saving your presence again, ma'am) for nursing a grudge. 'Keep a
stone in your pocket seven years: turn it, keep it for another seven;
'twill be ready at hand for your enemy'--that's their way. But, to
begin with, an old _jogi_ is nothing strange to meet on a ship before
she clears. These beggars in the East will creep in anywhere.
And, next, you'll hardly maintain that an old beggarman ('seventy
years old if a day,' said Orchard) was going to take an active man
like Mr. Annesley and cram him bodily through a cabin window?
'Tis out of nature. And yet when we broke into his cabin,
twenty-four hours later, there was not a trace of him: only his boxes
neatly packed, his watch hanging to the beam and just running down, a
handful of gold and silver tossed on to the bunk--just as he might
have emptied it from his pockets--nothing else, and the whole cabin
neat as a pin."

"But," objected Mr. Matthew Wesley, "if this _jogi_--or whatever you
call him--had entered the cabin for no good, he would hardly have
missed the money lying on the bunk."

"Sir, you must not judge these eastern mendicants by your London
beggars. They are not thieves, nor avaricious, but religious men
practising self-denial, who collect alms merely to support life, and
believe that money so bestowed blesses the giver."

"A singularly perverted race!" was the apothecary's comment.

Captain Bewes turned towards Mr. Samuel, who next spoke from the
penumbra at the far end of the table. "I believe, Captain," said he,
"that these mendicants are as a rule the most harmless of men?"

"Wouldn't hurt a fly, sir. I h