station as captain, was introduced into the more private apartments of
the place, where were the ladies and Captain Ratlin, the latter trying
to re-assure them, and to quiet their fears on account of the late
fearful business of the fight. He was thus engaged when the English
captain entered, and was not a little astonished to hear the mutual
expressions of surprise that were uttered by both the ladies and the
officer himself, while a moment sufficed to show them to be old
acquaintances! The reader would here recognize, in the new comer,
Captain Robert Bramble, whom we saw paying suit to Miss Huntington, not
long previous, on the shady verandah of her mother's house, in the
environs of Calcutta.

Notwithstanding the excitement of the moment, and the joy felt on all
sides at the timely arrival of the English officer and his
people,--notwithstanding the surprise of the moment, that filled all
present at the singular melting of old friends under such extraordinary
circumstances, yet a close observer might have noticed an ill-suppressed
expression of dissatisfaction upon Captain Ratlin's face, as he saw the
English captain in friendly and even familiar intercourse with mother
and daughter.

"Who could have possibly foreseen this strange, this opportune meeting?"
said the mother.

"It is as strange as agreeable, I assure you," replied the new comer.
"And you were wrecked and picked up at sea, you say, and brought here
by--"

"Captain Ratlin," interrupted the daughter, fearing that her mother
would have introduced a word that would have betrayed their protector.