“You were saying just now you didn’t understand,” he went on slowly, without looking up; “so you must take your own bearings from what I’m telling you.  When I met you that night I had just arrived from Melbourne.  I had been lucky in some trading speculations I had out there, and I had some bills with me, but no money except what I had tucked in the skin of that portmanteau and a few papers connected with my family at home.  When a man lives the roving kind of life I have, he learns to keep all that he cares for under his own hat, and isn’t apt to blab to friends.  But it got out in some way on the voyage that I had money, and as there was a mixed lot of ‘Sydney ducks’ and ’ticket of leave men’ on board, it seems they hatched a nice little plot to waylay me on the wharf on landing, rob me, and drop me into deep water.  To make it seem less suspicious, they associated themselves with a lot of crimps who were on the lookout for our sailors, who were going ashore that night too.  I’d my suspicions that a couple of those men might be waiting for me at the end of the wharf.  I left the ship just a minute or two before the sailors did.  Then I met you.  That meeting, my lad, was my first step toward salvation.  For the two men let you pass with my portmanteau, which they didn’t recognize, as I knew they would me, and supposed you were a stranger, and lay low, waiting for me.  I, who went into the gin-mill with the other sailors, was foolish enough to drink, and was drugged and crimped as they were.  I hadn’t thought of that.  A poor devil of a ticket of leave man, about my size, was knocked down for me, and,” he added, suppressing a laugh, “will be buried, deeply lamented, in the chancel of Dornton Church.  While the row was going on, the skipper, fearing to lose other men, warped out into the stream, and so knew nothing of what happened to me.  When they found what they thought was my body, he was willing to identify it in the hope that the crime might be charged to the crimps, and so did the other sailor witnesses.  But my brother Bill, who had just arrived here from Callao, where he had been hunting for me, hushed it up to prevent a scandal.  All the same, Bill might have known the body wasn’t mine, even though he hadn’t seen me for years.”

“But it was frightfully disfigured, so that even I, who saw you only once, could not have sworn it was not you,” said Randolph quickly.

“Humph!” said Captain Dornton musingly.  “Bill may have acted on the square—­though he was in a d——­d hurry.”

“But,” said Randolph eagerly, “you will put an end to all this now.  You will assert yourself.  You have witnesses to prove your identity.”

“Steady, lad,” said the captain, waving his pipe gently.  “Of course I have.  But”—­he stopped, laid down his pipe, and put his hands doggedly in his pockets—­“Is it worth it?” Seeing the look of amazement in Randolph’s face, he laughed his low laugh, and settled himself back in his chair again.  “No,” he said quietly, “if it wasn’t for my son, and what’s due him as my heir, I suppose—­I reckon I’d just chuck the whole d——­d thing.”