Six months later Jack was again appointed to a berth in a fine frigate, commanded by his cousin.  The ship was ordered to the China seas, where she remained until, at the outbreak of the Indian Mutiny, she was sent to Calcutta.  On their arrival there Jack found that Captain Peel, under whom he had served before Sebastopol, was organizing a naval brigade for service ashore.  Jack at once waited upon him, and begged to be allowed to join the brigade.  His request was complied with, and as he had now nearly served his time and passed his examination he received an appointment as acting lieutenant, obtaining the full rank after the fight in which the brigade were engaged on their march up to Cawnpore.  He was present at the tremendous struggle when the relieving force under Lord Clyde burst its way into Lucknow and carried off the garrison, and also at the final crushing out of the rebellion at that spot.

At the conclusion of the war he rejoined his ship, and returned with her when she finally left the station for England, after an absence of five years.  He was now three-and-twenty, and having been twice mentioned in despatches, was looked upon as a rising young officer.

A month or two after his return he received a letter from Count Preskoff, with whom he had, at intervals corresponded ever since his escape from captivity.  The count said that he, with the countess and his youngest daughter, Olga, were at present in Paris.  The two elder girls had been for some years married.  The count said that he intended, after making a stay for some time in Paris, to visit England, but invited Jack to come over to pay them a visit in Paris.  Jack gladly assented, and a few days later joined his Russian friends at the Hotel Meurice, in the Rue Rivoli.  They received him with the greatest warmth, and he was soon upon his old terms of familiarity with them.  He found, to his great pleasure, that Olga could now speak English fluently, and as he had forgotten a good deal of his Russian, and had learned no French, she often acted as interpreter between him and her parents.  Jack’s Russian, however, soon returned to him, and at the end of a fortnight he was able to converse fluently in it again.

He found Olga very little altered, but she, on her part, protested that she should not have known him again.  He had thought very often of her during the years which had passed, but although he had steadfastly clung to the determination he had expressed to his friend Hawtry, of some day marrying her if she would have him, he was now more alive than before to the difference between her position and his.  The splendid apartments occupied by the count, his unlimited expenditure, the beauty of his carriages and horses, all showed Jack the difference between a great Russian seigneur and a lieutenant on half-pay.  Feeling that he was becoming more and more in love with Olga, he determined to make some excuse to leave Paris, intending upon his return to apply at once to be sent on active service.