The sham Kralinsky was securely tied down in a chair and the boatswain and the five seamen stood round him, an admiring public. Captain Brown had been informed of what had happened and was going on, and the discipline he maintained on board was so perfect that every man on the watch was at his post, and the steamer was already under weigh again. The boatswain and his contingent belonged to the watch below, which had not been called for the start.
'Let me off easy,' said Long-legged Levi's brother. 'I've not done you any harm.'
'Beyond wounding Lady Maud, after trying to pass yourself off as her dead husband. No. I won't let you off. Boatswain, I want this man arrested, and we'll take him and all his belongings before the British Consul in Messina in less than an hour. You just attend to that, will you? Somebody go and tell the Captain.'
'Aye, aye, sir.'
For the boatswain and the men had seen and heard, [{424}] and they knew that Mr. Van Torp was right, and they respected him, and the foreign impostor had wounded an English woman; and having given his orders, the owner and Lady Maud turned and left Long-legged Levi's brother tied to the chair, in a very dejected state, and his uncertain eyes did not even follow them.
The rest is soon told. A long inquiry followed, which led to the solution of the mystery and sent Count Yuryi Leven to Siberia; for he was Boris Leven's twin brother.
The truth turned out to be that there had been three brothers, the youngest being Ivan, and they had all entered the same Cossack regiment, and had served in the Caucasus, where most officers learn the Tartar language, which is spoken by all the different tribes. It will be simpler to designate them by the English equivalents for their names.
Boris behaved himself tolerably well in the army, but both his brothers, John and George, who was his twin, were broken for cheating at cards, and emigrated to America. So long as they all wore their beards, as officers of Cossack regiments usually do, they were very much alike. They were all educated men of refined tastes, and particularly fond of music.
When his two brothers were cashiered, Boris resigned, entered the diplomatic service, married Lady Maud Foxwell, and was killed by a bomb in St. Petersburg.