“Yes,” replied the quartermaster, “for the Britannia did not touch there while I was on board. And how I came to speak of Callao at Paddy O’Moore’s farm was that I learned the circumstances from your recital.”
“Go on, Ayrton,” said Glenarvan.
“I found myself abandoned on a nearly desert coast, but only forty miles from the penal settlement at Perth, the capital of Western Australia. As I was wandering there along the shore, I met a band of convicts who had just escaped, and I joined myself to them. You will dispense, my Lord, with any account of my life for two years and a half. This much, however, I must tell you, that I became the leader of the gang, under the name of Ben Joyce. In September, 1864, I introduced myself at the Irish farm, where I engaged myself as a servant in my real na
