Page:Ballantyne--The Battery and the Boiler.djvu/292

 "No—no—Miss Letty," replied the man hastily, "Ho! no, not dead, but goed away; nigh broked her heart when she losted you; git berry sick; t'ought she was go for die, but she no die. She jis turn de corner and come round, an' when she git bedder she goed away."

"Were did she go to?" asked Eobin, anxiously,

"To Bumby," said old George.

"To where?"

"Bumby."

"I suppose you mean Bombay?" said Sam.

"Yes, yes—an' me say Bumby."

"Is she alive and well?" asked Robin.

"Don' know," replied old George, shaking his head; "she no write to hold Geo'gie. Nigh two hears since she goed away."

When the excitement of this meeting began to subside, Sam Shipton took the old Malay aside, and, after prolonged conversation, learned from him the story, of which the following is the substance.

Mrs. Langley was the widow of a gentleman who had died in the service of Rajah Brooke. Several years before—he could not say exactly how many—the widow had retired with her only child, Letta, to a little bungalow on a somewhat out-of-the-way part of the coast which Mr. Langley used to be fond of going to, and called his "shooting-box." This had