“In Heaven’s name, Leonard, what do you mean by such an assertion?” asked Captain Bramble, throwing himself into a chair, and wiping the cold perspiration from his face.

“I mean, sir, that the man on trial to-day is no more nor less than your brother!”

“Charles Bramble?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How strange is all this.  How know you beyond all cavil, Leonard?”

“By the scar over the right eye.  You gave it to him yourself.  Don’t you remember, sir, just previous to the dog affair, for which he ran away from home!”

“By Heaven!  I believe you speak truly; and yet how strange, how more than strange it all is, that we should meet again in this way!”

“It quite nonplussed me, sir.  I thought he was a ghost at first.”

“Strange, strange!” mused the elder brother.  “In those days, long ago in our childhood, he crossed my path constantly, and here he is again athwart my hawse.  By Heaven! but it is strange—­wonderful, that fate should have thrown him and Helen Huntington together again, and that neither should know the other; and yet not so very strange, for she was but eight years old when Charles ran away.  Yes, he thwarted me then, for even in childhood the girl fancied him above me, and now she affects him even in his fallen fortunes.”

“What shall we do, sir, now that master Charles has turned up again?” asked Leonard Hust, in his simplicity.  “We cannot testify against him now, sir.”

“No, no, no!” said the elder brother, hastily, “he must not be further examined.”

“How he has altered, sir, only to think,” continued the servant; “why, when he went away from Bramble Park, sir, he wasn’t much more than nine years old.”

“Yes.  I remember, I remember, Leonard,” replied his master, hurriedly, while he walked the apartment with quick, irregular steps.  “I remember only too well.”

This was indeed that elder brother who had, when a boy, so oppressed, so worried, and rendered miserable his brother Charles, as to cause him in a fit of desperation to stray away from home, whither he knew not.  His parents saw now—­alas! too late—­their fatal error; but the boy was gone, no tidings could be had of him, and they believed him dead.  The honest tar, whose yarn the attentive reader will remember, as given on the deck of the “Sea Witch,” spoke truly of his commander.  He had, years before, strayed alongside a vessel, as has been related, from whence he hardly knew himself, or was afraid to say.  Hunger and neglect even then had greatly changed him, and he shipped, as has been related.  The fall he got at sea threw a cloud over his brain as to past recollections up to that time, and here if the wish ever possessed him as to returning to his early home, he knew naught of it.