"Sit still! How can I sit still? There is something broken in my head; there are the fires of hell in my heart. A devil is ever leaning over my shoulder, and---- Ma Mie, you traitress, where are you? Let me pass," he shouted, "or I will---- Ugh! there it is!" He turned and, glancing over his shoulder, saw Ah-Geelong moving softly toward him, and then with a bitter curse sprang backward out into the veranda, and the next moment there was a dull thud below, and all was very still. They picked him up gently and bore him to Jackson's own room. Phipson ran for Smalley, and when Habakkuk came he looked at the man carefully. "I will do what I can," he said, "but no human art can save him; he is most fearfully injured. I doubt if he will live through until the morning." But when the morning came Hawkshawe was still alive, and when the sun sank he was not dead. There was one who came and took her place by the sick-bed as if it was her right, and neither of the three men had the heart to forbid Ma Mie. All through the long hours she never left him, and they were her hands that lifted his head as the last breath came and Alban Hawkshawe passed away. He never once regained consciousness, and it was only his extraordinary muscular vitality that kept him living for so long a time. When it was all over and Smalley had gone, promising to come again with the morning, Phipson and Peregrine went back downstairs to the dining-room and there sat up together. Sleep was impossible, and to both of them death like this was a new and terrible thing. It was then that Ah-Geelong came in softly and brought a message from Ma Mie to say that she wished to see them. "Ask her to come in," said Peregrine, and she came. She held in her hands a small inlaid casket, which she placed on the shining woodwork of the table. Her eyes were tearless, but her voice trembled as she spoke. "See," she said, "what was my husband is lying dead above, and dead in dishonour. I have come to make his memory clean and to restore----" With a quick movement of her hands she opened the casket and scattered its contents on the table. It was full of precious stones, and above them all coiled the ruby bracelet, and the evil light of the gems seemed to blaze and sputter through the night. "I restore, as he would have restored if God did not make him mad; here they are, jewels for which he sold his honour and I my soul. And now good-bye. You were good to him, and you saved my life. Ma Mie will never forget." They let her go without a word, and she passed out into the darkness forever from their sight. CHAPTER XI. THE PATIENCE OF HABAKKUK SMALLEY. To-night I pass the narrow straits Which lead unto the Unknown Sea. God, who knoweth the hearts of man, Make Thou my pathway clear to me! _Voyage of the Tobias_.