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The ship Maxwell, Captain Roberts, homeward bound from Australia to New York, was bowling along upon her course under full sail.

It was a dark night, unrelieved save by the phosphor gleam of the seas around the vessel, and the light of the two lanterns hung up in the fore and mizzen rigging.

The Maxwell had one passenger—a gentleman named William Manton, who, having accumulated a fortune at Australia, was now returning to the United States, where his wife had died during his absence, but where he expected to find his daughter, Mary, and a young man of nineteen years old, living with an aunt in New York.

In an iron box the passenger carried his fortune—gold pieces, amounting in all to five hundred thousand dollars.