"I am afraid you must make up your mind to it, Annie, for there is no saying how long I may be away next time. You see, there is not much chance of my lighting upon another white slave girl, and having to bring her down here; and I shall go in for a long, steady search for my father." "I don't want you to find another slave girl, Dick," she said earnestly, "not even if it brought you down here again. I should not like that at all." "Why not, Annie?" "Oh, you might like her ever so much better than me. I should like you to do all sorts of brave things, Dick, and to save people as you have saved me, but I would rather there was not another girl." Dick laughed. "Well, I don't suppose that there is much chance of it. Besides, I can't turn my uncle's palace into a Home for Lost Girls." Two days before Dick and Surajah started again, the reply from the military secretary arrived. It stated that the time and circumstances pointed out that the place besieged and forced to surrender, eight years before, was Corsepan; and this was indeed rendered a certainty, by the fact that the officer in command was Captain Mansfield. He had with him a half company of Europeans, and three companies of Sepoys. On looking through the official papers at the time, he had found Captain Mansfield's report, in which he stated that, on the night after leaving the fort, the troops, which had been reduced to half their original strength, had been attacked by a party either of dacoits or irregular troops. Fearing that some such act of treachery might be attempted, he had told his men to conceal a few cartridges under their clothes, when they marched out with empty cartridge pouches. They had, on arriving at their halting place, loaded; and, when the dacoits fell upon them, had opened fire. The robbers doubtless expected to find them defenceless, and speedily fled. In the confusion, some of them had penetrated far into the camp, and had carried off the captain's daughter, a child of six years old. When peace was signed with Tippoo, three weeks afterwards, the commissioners were ordered to make special inquiries as to this child, and to demand her restoration. They reported that Tippoo denied all knowledge of the affair, and neither she, nor any of the other girls there, were ever given up. The letter went on: