arty sent down by Tippoo, who, having heard
that two Englishmen had been cast on shore, had insisted upon one of
them being handed over to him.

"It is known that a great many of the prisoners in Tippoo's hands have
been murdered in their dungeons. He has sworn, over and over again,
that he has no European prisoners, but every one knows that he has
numbers of them in his hands. Whether the captain is one of those who
have been murdered, or whether he is still in one of Tippoo's
dungeons, is more than I or any one else can say."

"Well, as I have told you, Ben, that is what we mean to find out."

"I know that is what your mother has often said, lad, but it seems to
me that you have more chance of finding the man in the moon than you
have of learning whether your father is alive, or not."

"Well, we are going to try, anyhow, Ben. I know it's a difficult job,
but Mother and I have talked it over, ever since you came home with
the news, three years ago; so I have made up my mind, and nothing can
change me. You see, I have more chances than most people would have.
Being a boy is all in my favour; and then, you know, I talk the
language just as well as English."

"Yes, of course that is a pull, and a big one; but it is a desperate
undertaking, lad, and I can't say as I see how it is to be done."

"I don't see either, Ben, and I don't expect to see until we get out
there; but, desperate or not, Mother and I are going to try."

Dick Holland, the speaker, was a lad of some fifteen years of age. His
father, who was captain of a fine East Indiaman, had sailed from
London when he was nine, and had never returned. No news had been
received of the ship after she touched at the Cape, and it was
supposed that she had gone down with all hands; until, nearly three
years later, her boatswain, Ben Birket, had entered the East India
Company's office, and reported that he himself, and the captain, had
been cast ashore on the territories of the Rajah of Coorg; the sole
survivors, as far as he knew, of the Hooghley.

After an interview with the Directors, he had gone straight to the
house at Shadwell inhabited by Mrs. Holland. She had left there, but
had removed to a smaller one a short distance away, where she lived
upon the interest of the sum that her husband had invested from his
savings, and from a small pension granted to her by the Company.

Mrs. Holland was a half caste, the daughter of an English woman who
had married a youn