and until I get it I am so restless and so confoundedly irritable
that I am not fit to associate with anyone. When I look in here
again I hope that it will be all right, and then I shall be
delighted to come to you, and have a chat over our Indian days; but
at present I really am not up to it."

His appearance was sufficient to testify that his plea was not a
fictitious excuse.

On the fourth day he found a letter awaiting him at the post
office. He tore it open, and read:

"Funchal, Madeira, August 30.

"Sir: At the request of Mr. Greenwood I beg to inform you that a
brigantine, precisely answering to the description given me,
anchored in the roads here on the 21st. She only remained a few
hours to take in water and stores. I was at the landing place when
the master came on shore. He said that they had had a wonderfully
fast voyage from England, having come from the Lizard under seven
days, and holding a leading wind all the way. She was flying the
Belgian flag, and I learned from the Portuguese official who
visited her that her papers were all in order, and that she had
been purchased at Ostend from an Englishman only three weeks
before, and had been named the Dragon. He did not remember what her
English name had been.

"Most unfortunately she had left a few hours before the mail
steamer came in, bringing me the letter from Lloyd's. I do not know
that I could, in any case, have stopped her; but I think that I