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'If he is, said Dunbar, folding up the telegram and putting it into his pocket, 'I think our future duties will not be heavy. The man who has come to light and told the story of the wreck of the Rosana is a native of that favoured spot where already our friend Purvis is not too popular. God help the man if they get hold of him! 'His little boy is here now, said Toffy, starting up.
I happen to know that for a fact, but the Lord only knows the reason for it! Now, this boat was found, half-burnt, lying on a lonely bit of coast a few weeks after the Rosana foundered. This is a thing which I may remark is not generally known; but I happen to have had ocular demonstration of it. The boat was a smart built one, with her name in gold leaf on the bows.
'And then there is this to be said, Toffy, he added, beginning to speak at the point to which his thoughts had taken him 'there is this to be said: suppose one could get Purvis out of this hole, Dunbar is waiting for him at Taco. He will be tried for the affair of the Rosana and other things besides, and if he is not hanged he will spend the next few years of his life in prison.
At these words the king's brows darkened, he struck his horse so that the creature reared, and then, turning it quickly round, he galloped towards Babylon. He decided in his mind to give Bartja the command of an expedition against the Tapuri, and to make him marry Rosana, the daughter of a Persian noble. He also determined to make Nitetis his real queen and adviser.
'I wouldn't, said Dunbar, 'give you the benefit of my speculations on the subject of the Rosana were it not that E. W. Smith was on board. E. W. Smith couldn't die; he wasn't fit for it. But it's a long story. I 'll not bother you with it. Dunbar looked doubtfully at his tobacco pouch, pinched it, and then contemplated his pipe.
'Smith being Purvis, I take it, said Toffy. 'Yes, said Dunbar, 'or any other alias you please. He is a fair man now with a beard, isn't he? Well, on board the Rosana he was a clean-shaven man with dark hair, but you cannot mistake E. W. Smith's eyes, though I hear his voice is altered.
'You say that Tranter and this man Purvis, or Smith, escaped from the wreck, and that Purvis could not row? 'I am coming to that, said Dunbar, unmoved. 'Observe, the Rosana carried one boat. She had lost her other by an accident, it seems, and the one that remained was not a much bigger one than a dinghy such as men use to go to and from the shore when they are in harbour.
Dunbar cleared his throat. 'You mind, he said, 'the story of the Rosana, which I told you on board the Royal Mail Packet, when we were in the River Plate coming up to Monte Video? 'I remember, said Peter briefly. And Ross nodded his head also; every one in Argentine knew the story of the wreck of the Rosana. 'I knew, said Dunbar, 'that E. W. Smith could not die!
The Rosana was a ship that used to do good a bit of trading on the coast, and there was a man on board of her whom I used to know, and who had been once a little too well known in Argentine. Well, this ship foundered with all hands on board, and was never heard of again, although two of her life-belts were picked up, and one or two pieces of her deck-gear.
'I shall never, said Dunbar, 'believe in the final disappearance or even in the death of any one until I have seen the doctor's certificate or the man's corpse. Men have got a queer way of turning up, and even the sea may give up secrets when you least expect it. Take the case of the Rosana, he went on, 'and allow me to put the facts of the case before you.
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