was summoned to an interview with Colonel Clive, who was resting in his tent, with his papers spread open before him, and Major Coote seated by his side, giving him a lively account of the assault upon Cutwah fort. By this means released from attendance on my patron, I strolled among the troops, white and coloured, watching their busy preparations for the night's food and shelter. All were in excellent spirits, for it was a quality of Clive's mind to inspire life and hope in the minds of other men, yes even of these sepoys, whose language he spoke so poorly, and who seemed to take from the very fire of his glance the spark that transformed them from the venal machines of war to daring and eager soldiers.

Night was fast closing in after the brief twilight of this eastern world, and I was walking somewhat listlessly among the newly-erected tents, when I was startled by the aspect of a face that flashed upon me across the glare of a cook's fire. It was the smoke-blackened countenance of a European soldier, who lay stretched at full length on the ground beside the fire, and it seemed wondrously familiar.

My heart leapt into my throat, and wellnigh choked me. Yes, it was a face that had been familiar to me in my old life-that old unforgotten time in which I had not yet bid good-bye to youth and hope. It was the face of the man with whom I had shared the slow agonies of the Black-Hole prison, and whom I had believed dead of that night's torture.

"Phil!" I cried, with a ringing shout that startled the party by the watch-fire.

The English soldier leapt to his feet, sprang towards me, and embraced me as if I had been his sweetheart.

"Why, Robert, I thought thou wert dead!"

"And I had given you over for one of the hapless wretches buried in the ditch at Fort William on the 21st of June."

"No, Bob; I came forth out of that hell alive. By what instinct I saved myself I know not, for when I dropped from your neck I am sure I was dying. But I think the love of life is extra strong in vagabonds, like the love of drink or of women, or the thirst for an enemy's blood. I faintly remember clambering over the heaps of dead-yes, Bob, indifferent that I trod on corpses-to the mountain of corruption piled on the platform, and here I lay topmost and insensible. Some black Samaritan dragged me out, still half unconscious, and flung me on the grass outside, to die or recover as Fate would have it; and as Fate has constant need of such instruments of mischief as I am, I did recover, escaping with only a touch of rheumatic fever and a scourge. of boils, which latter affliction I endured with a most un-Job-like impatience. Recovered from these, I found myself a beggar amongst other beggars in Calcutta, where I must have starved but for the charity of that old Gentoo merchant with whom you statesmen are now so friendly. Here, however, I had the ill-luck to be the death

of a Mussulman soldier by a chance blow in a drunken fight—for these Moors drink deep as John Bull himself, if they can but get the forbidden liquor and was obliged to run for my life, and for two months. led a wandering existence, bordering unpleasantly near upon starvation; for these Hindoos, who will do wonders of beneficence for any greasy, unclean wretch with a withered arm, or his finger-nails growing through the palms of his shrivelled hands, have little charity for a decent Englishman. I found more compassion at Chandernagore, where our enemies the French gave me food and shelter, and looked upon me as in a manner canonised by the martyrdom of the Black Hole; and here I lay till I heard that Clive and Watson were coming to the rescue, when I left my friendly foes, and contrived to join the English at Fulta."

"And you were at the capture of Calcutta?" I asked.

"Yes, Bob; and at Hooghley, in the night-attack on the Nabob's camp; and at the siege of Chandernagore. I have had my fill of fighting, and am a full sergeant, with a prospect of a pair of colours, should Fortune send us a successful issue to this noble rebellion."

"I wish you good-luck with all my heart, Phil," said I; and, having answered his eager questions as to my own adventures since last year, I linked my arm with his, and drew him away from the tents, for he held the key to a secret that was life or death to me.

"Do you remember what you told me in the Black Hole, Philip Hay?" I asked solemnly.

"Yes, Robert Ainsleigh," replied he, with mock gravity that ridiculed my earnestness; "and be sure what I told you there was the truth, for I felt the grip of Death's bony fingers on my weasand that night, and whatever I said to you was a last dying speech and confession."

"You told me that Margery is your wife."

"As much as a marriage-service can make her so."

"And you sank unconscious at my feet while I was entreating you to tell me the name of the man who holds your marriage-certificate."

"Likely enough, Bob. I have but a shadowy recollection of that night. The man's name is Blade-Silas Blade, an attorney in Little Britain. I lodged the certificate with him, in a tin box containing other papers, chiefly letters from my friend and patron Mr. Everard Lestrange. Deuced cautious letters they were too; but they tell their story nevertheless, and, knowing their value, I took care to put them in safe keeping. You see I always feared mischief from that gentleman; and, as he had shown himself anxious to get both the certificate and the letters from me, I should have been a very idiot to keep them in my own possession."

66

Philip," said I, "you have often acknowledged you did me a cruel injury six years ago."

"Yes, Bob, I am ready enough to confess that sin.”

“Will you go a step further than confession, and make some atonement for that injury?"

"What atonement can a penniless sergeant of Bengal Infantry offer to a lucky young fellow who has always fallen on his feet, and is now no doubt on the high-road to fortune?"

"If ever I go back to England, Phil, my first desire will be to annul that marriage with Margery. Had the poor child been true to herself, I would have gladly married her, as I told her father. Sure, I loved her as well as ever brother loved sister, and the memory of our happy childhood made her almost holy in my eyes; yet of that love which makes the glory and brightness of marriage there could, at best, have been none between us. But do you think I can peacefully endure the odious link that binds me to Everard Lestrange's cast-off mistress? No, Philip, that tie could never be otherwise than hateful. Loosen it, and I will be a true friend to that poor deluded girl; loosen it, and I will say you did me no injury when you lent yourself to a plot that robbed me of Dorothea Hemsley."

"What can I do, Bob, more than I have done towards the loosening of your marriage-tie ?"

"Give me your written statement of the facts, attested by Mr. Watts. Let me have a letter to your attorney, Mr. Blade, authorising him to give me that marriage-certificate. You are going into action, and may fall-God forbid it should be so!—but I cannot afford to run any hazards, and must be prepared for the worst. If Meer Jaffier and his party succeed, I shall be handsomely rewarded for my humble services, and shall obtain leave to return to England. For pity's sake give me the power to set myself right there! Cancel the legal obligation that binds me to your wife, and I charge myself with her maintenance and protection from the hour of finding her."

'My wife!" cried Hay, with a careless laugh; "what a farce it all seems! My wife! and I know not whether the poor soul be alive or dead. A courtesan, perhaps, dancing at Vauxhall, with a face coated half-an-inch thick with white-lead, and patches of vermilion under her faded eyes!"

"No, by Heaven, I'll never believe that! Fallen, alas, poor child, but not impure; no grief would ever drive her to depravity."

"Thou'lt not believe! Alas, poor innocent! and what dost thou know of the town's depravity? Have I not seen simplicity as rustic descend to the lowest hell of the dissolute? Woe be to that hand which pushes the frail creature on the first step of sin's fatal slope! If you loved the girl with that brotherly affection you speak of, pray you may find the rank weeds growing above her in some City graveyard. 'Tis your best chance of finding her no further advanced in vice. than when you left her."

I was inexpressibly shocked by the cruel cynicism and settled conviction of my companion's tone, and yet I could not believe the bitterest

fate could have driven Margery to vice. My trust in her better instincts was greater than my belief in Philip Hay's knowledge of the world. These men who study the worst side of mankind can believe anything easier than the possibility of virtue.

"Will you do what I want, Phil?" I asked presently. "You shall have a share of my good fortune if Colonel Clive dethrones the Nabob."

"Yes, Robert, I will do this thing for you, and without promise of payment. Though I'll not say that I shall refuse a ten-pound note should I fall in with you when your purse is full. There are Spartan virtues to which I never have pretended, and the rejection of a friendly loan is one of them. Take me where I can have pen, ink, and paper, and the deed shall be done."

After this I lost no time in conducting my companion to Mr. Watts' tent, from which my patron was happily absent. Here Philip Hay seated himself on the ground, and on a small travelling-portfolio of my providing scrawled a declaration of his marriage with Margery Hawker, when and where performed, with Mr. Everard Lestrange's name duly set down as witness of the ceremony.

This done, he wrote a letter to Mr. Blade, of Little Britain, authorising that gentleman to permit the bearer to open a certain sealed case of papers, take from it the document he required, and reseal it with his

own seal.

"I trust to your honour for taking nothing but the certificate, Bob," Mr. Hay said a little doubtfully, as he folded the letter.

"I am not quite a scoundrel, Phil."

"You are the simplest and best of men," he replied, with a laugh. "There is your letter."

"And here is Mr. Watts, who will oblige me by attesting your signature to the other paper."

My patron entered the tent as I spoke, and at once consented to witness the document without any knowledge of its contents.

"I hope you'll excuse my black face, sir," said Philip. "We had rather hot work at the fort to-day, and I had charge of a gun. How these black fellows sweat when they see us reload and fire charge number two before they have recovered from their surprise at charge number one! 'Tis as much as their best gunners can do to fire a heavy piece once in a quarter of an hour, and they think there's witchcraft in British artillery."

With this vaunt of our English arms, Philip saluted Mr. Watts, shook me by the hand, and departed, after a whisper to the effect that we should meet elsewhere.

I was heartily glad to have seen him amongst the living, still more glad to hold the two papers he had given me.