What will you do when the trial is over?"
"I don't know."
"Did Mr. Clive say anything about a cadetship?"
"Not a word. He only said that I should get a share of the Gheria prize
money."
"That's something to the good. Use it wisely. I came out to Calcutta
twenty years ago with next to nothing, and I've done well. There's no
reason why you should not make your fortune, too, if your health will
stand the climate. We'll have a talk over things before I sail."
A week later the Bridgewater arrived from Gheria, with Diggle on board.
He was imprisoned in the fort, being allotted far too comfortable
quarters to please Mr. Merriman. But Merriman's indignation at what he
considered the governor's leniency was changed to hot rage three days
later when it became known that the prisoner had disappeared. Not a trace
of him could be discovered. He had been locked in as usual one night, and
next morning his room was empty. Imprisonment was much less stringent in
those days than now; the prisoner was allowed to see visitors and to live
more or less at ease. The only clue to Diggle's escape was afforded by
the discovery that, at the same time that he disappeared, there vanished
also a black boy, who had been brought among the prisoners from Gheria
and was employed in doing odd jobs about the harbor.
Desmond had no doubt that this was Diggle's boy Scipio Africanus. And
when he mentioned the connection between the two, it was supposed that
the negro had acted as go-between for his master with the friends in the
town by whose aid the escape had been arranged.
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