Ike’s curiosity was aroused and he asked:
“Madam, how is it I find you so poor?”
“I am a widow, and managed to get along well enough until I was taken sick; my husband was mate of a vessel; the vessel was wrecked and all lives were lost.”
“How long ago did it all happen?”
“My husband was wrecked five years ago.”
“And have you no friends?”
“No, I was an orphan and my husband was born in the West Indies. He never spoke of having any relatives.”
The woman had appeased her appetite, and she said:
“Now tell me about yourself.”
“Mine is a strange tale, madam. I have a faint, a very faint recollection of once being in a great big house, and as the opera goes, ‘with vassals and serfs at my side.’ It may all be a dream, recollections of splendors that belonged to some one else. Later I remember enduring great hardship with a strange old man; we were in France, England, Spain and Italy, and finally embarked for America; by that time I was old enough to remember all that occurred. We arrived in the United States and the old man commenced instructing me in all kinds of magical skill. He was a magician, we traveled all over the country, and I learned a great deal. He was a strange man, always making strange and mysterious allusions; but he never would make any actual explanations, nor would he tell me anything about myself. He accumulated a great deal of money, and—” the lad proceeded and related the subsequent facts which are known to our readers.