“Stop, there,” cried Jack, rising, and leaning eagerly across the table. “Say that name again.”
“Niccolo Baldassare.”
“My old companion,—my comrade at the galleys,” exclaimed Jack; “we were locked to each other, wrist and ankle, for eight months.”
“He lives, then?”
“I should think he does. The old beggar is as stout and hale as any one here. I can't guess his age; but I'll answer for his vigor.”
“This will be all important hereafter,” said Sedley, making a note. “Now to my narrative. From Lami, Baldassare learned the story of Enrichetta's unhappy marriage and death, and heard how the child, then a playful little boy of three years or so, was the rightful heir of a vast fortune,—a claim the grandfather firmly resolved to prosecute at some future day. The hope was, however, not destined to sustain him, for the boy caught a fever and died. His burial-place is mentioned, and his age, four years.”
“So that,” cried Augustus, “the claim became extinct with him?”
“Of course; for though Montague Bramleigh re-married, it was not till six years after his first wife's death.”
“And our rights are unassailable?” cried Nelly, wildly.
“Your estates are safe; at least, they will be safe.”