"It is very strange and queer," said Owen, as he sat back in his chair. "It is so new, and yet so very familiar. I could lay a wager that I have lived here before. I seemed to know the Esplanade Ghaut where we disembarked, and I am sure I have time and again watched these busy fellows one passes hurrying through the streets. Then there were those in the bazaar, the women and children, all strangely old and familiar to me, and yet so new."
He looked through the wide window with a puzzled expression on his face, and fell to thinking deeply. Indeed, he might have remained in this brown study for a long while had not Jack interrupted him.
"Then you may take it for certain that a portion of your history is connected with Calcutta or some other Indian port," he said. "You've told me a good deal, and you said that it was certain that you could speak a few words of the language. A chap couldn't imagine all this. To me it is utterly strange. The bright streets, the dust, the water-carriers, the stall-holders in the bazaar, elephants and horses with their bright saddlery. It is totally different from England. To my mind it is certain that you were born out here. It was natural for you to[Pg 121] forget a great deal when you were absent from the country, but the first sight of old familiar scenes brings back recollections."
Could it be so? Did he really and truly remember Calcutta in some vague uncertain way? Owen asked himself that question again and again. He shut his eyes and let his mind carry him back to the days, not so very long ago, when he was a child of four or five.
"I can see a big house, something like this," he said to himself, "with native servants all about, and a white lady. There was a black woman too, an ayah or nurse, I suppose, and an officer who was very tall. They ran to me and lifted me in their arms. Then there was a ship—yes, yes, I can see it here. It tossed up and down and I was ill. Then—I can only recall the postchaise galloping along the road, and old Mrs. Jones's honest face."
He gave vent to a sigh, a somewhat unusual thing with Owen, and opened his eyes to find the Major standing over him.
"In pain?" he asked curtly.
"No, sir. Thinking only."
"What! Tired of India already? Wanting to get home again?"
He smiled in a bantering manner as he stared at our hero.