hours after leaving Winchester the coach rattled over the cobbles of the London streets, and for the very first time in his life Owen saw the great city, with its thronging population, its huge buildings, its endless rows of houses and streets, and its vast army of coaches and flies. What would his amazement have been could he have seen the London of to-day, extending its arms like a gigantic octopus in every direction, absorbing the country around; its teeming millions, each bent on his or her own business or pleasure, going to and fro through the vast widened streets, or being carried there in swift mechanically propelled vehicles! What if he could have imagined that the horse would one of these days become almost a rarity in the streets of Mighty London!
But he had little time for thoughts. He descended from the coach at the Half Moon, in the Borough, and took a fly to Chelsea, where Mr. Halbut lived. A week later he was aboard one of the East Indiamen, bound for India, with the coast of England fast fading from sight.
"Here are letters which you will present when you arrive at Calcutta," Mr. Halbut had said to him as he was about to depart. "You will go to see the Governor, and you will be gazetted to one of the native regiments. On the way out you will apply yourself to such matters as Mr. Parkins, who sails with you, shall decide, and I need hardly urge you to work hard. Your progress in the future must depend on yourself. I will help no one who will not help himself."
Owen made up his mind to do credit to his friend, and once he had settled down on the ship, and had overcome his first attack of sea-sickness, he began the close study of Hindustani.
"You will find it invaluable," said Mr. Parkins, a gentleman of middle age, a servant of the great John Company, who was returning to India from leave. "When I first went to India I found myself constantly hampered by my ignorance, and, in fact, did not rise as quickly as I might have done. We shall take three months to reach Calcutta, and by then you should have made fine progress."
To Owen's amazement, and to the delight of Mr. Parkins, he made even more rapid advancement than could have been expected. The language came to him not so much as an entirely strange tongue, but as one which he had partially known before, and which he had forgotten.
"Which proves Mr. Halbut's assertion that you have been in India, and were born there," said Mr. Parkins. "No one else could pick up Hindustani so rapidly. We have been at our studies for barely three weeks, and here you are able to converse a little. Now I will give you a piece of advice. There are numbers of natives amongst this crew, and if I were you I would spend some time amongst them every day, chatting with them. Perhaps you will find one who is a little more intelligent than his fellows, and from him you may be able to learn some dialect which is not very different from the language you are studying, but which may be of very great advantage to you."
Owen took the advice seriously, and thereafter went every morning forward to the quarters of the crew. Nor was it long before he came upon one of the men who was of very different character from his comrades. He could speak English tolerably, and soon told his story.
"I am not like these other lascars, who are men of low caste," he said, with every sign of disdain. "I come from Bhurtpore, and am a Mahratta by birth. There I lived with my father till ten years ago, when I fled for my life. It is a little tale, which is of no great interest, sahib, but here it is. It happened that there was a girl, the daughter of a neighbouring farmer, to whom I was to be married, and should have been but for my half-brother. He acted like a cur. He stole her from me, and then killed her with his cruelty. In a fit of rage one day I slew him, and fled from the punishment which would have followed. That is why I am here now. Some day, perhaps, I shall return to my home."
"And in the meanwhile I want you to talk to me every day, Mulha," answered Owen. "One of these days I may find it useful, and if you have the time to spare I shall be glad. I will pay you a rupee a week for the service."
"I gladly accept, sahib," was the answer.
Thereafter Owen spent many hours forward in the early morning, while in the later part of the day he and Mr. Parkins tramped the narrow deck, or lay under the awnings, talking in Hindustani, till our hero was really very proficient.
"You are remembering my rules well," said his instructor, when they had been at sea for six weeks. "After the first week I said that whenever you spoke to me out of the saloon it must be in Hindustani. If you forgot, you were fined a trifle, which went to the box set aside for the help of the sailors' orphans. There is nothing like a penalty to make one sharp of memory, and the result is that you have got on even more rapidly. When you land you will be able to take up your duties at once. That will be an eye-opener to the authorities, who generally allow six months for learning the language."
Altogether Owen enjoyed his trip out immensely. He was a steady young fellow, and he had set out with keen determination to get on. His work made the hours run away, while to the numerous other young fellows going out time hung on their hands, till they became quarrelsome and discontented. And it so happened that amongst these youths, some of whom were to take up commissions like his own, while others were going out as clerks to the East India Company, was a young man, some twenty years of age, who seemed to have taken a great dislike to our hero. He had quickly asserted his position as the leader of all the young men aboard, and when he found that Owen took little notice of him, and was so busy that he had little time to spare for his company, he commenced upon an irritating course intended to humiliate our hero. Every time Owen passed him and his comrades he would make some loud remark, and finally came to openly scoffing. Owen stood it for a long while till his patience was exhausted, then he turned upon the bully.
"You spoke of me, I think," he said suddenly, swinging round and approaching the group, whom he had been about to pass on his way to the lower deck. "Repeat what you said."
"Certainly, with the greatest pleasure. I said that it was bad form for an ensign to spend his time with the deck-hands and the lascars, and that it was only to be expected from one who I happen to know was a corporal some few weeks ago, and who, in his earlier days, came from a poorhouse. That's what I said, and I know I'm right, for Dandy here happens to come from the neighbourhood of Winchester."
"And recognised you at once," burst in that worthy from the background.
"Which is all the more flattering to me," answered Owen calmly, though it was as much as he could do to curb his anger. "I freely admit the truth of what has been said. I have come from a poorhouse, and I was a corporal. But as to the bad form, well, I hardly fancy one would go to Mr. Hargreaves for a decision on that matter."
He looked the bully squarely in the face, while the latter flushed red. Perhaps there was very good reason. It may have been that his own antecedents were not of the best. He became flurried, and began to bluster.
"You wouldn't!" he exclaimed. "Why? If you're impertinent I shall have something more to say."
"You will have more to say in any case," blurted out Owen, now letting himself go. "For days you have openly scoffed at me, Mr. Hargreaves, and now you have to stop promptly. You talk of impertinence after what you have said! I reply that I am proud of what I have been in the past, and that if the truth were known it is possible that you who crow so loud, and are so ready to sit upon one who is new to the position of officer, would not have such a fine tale to tell."
Whether the shot went home it would be impossible to state, but something stung the bully to the quick. He started forward, and stepping to within a foot of Owen stared into his face and challenged him to repeat the statement. Owen complied by instantly knocking him down with a blow between the eyes. Then he calmly divested himself of his coat and neckerchief, while the bully and a few of his companions stood about him in a threatening attitude.
"Steady on there! We'll have the matter settled squarely, gentlemen. From what I have seen – and I have had my eyes and ears open – Mr. Jones here has been very studious, while you others have been hanging
