With this thought, he naturally looked down, but missed the bladder that had lately protruded from his pocket He clapped his hand to his pocket all in a flutter. The bottle was gone. In a fever of alarm and anxiety, but with good hopes of finding it, he searched the deck; he looked in every cranny, behind every coil of rope the sea had not carried away. In vain. The sea, acting on the buoyant bladder attached, had clearly torn the bottle out of his pocket, when it washed him against the mast. His treasure then must have been driven much farther; and how far? Who could tell? It flashed on the poor man with fearful distinctness that it must either have been picked up by somebody in the ship ere now, or else carried out to sea. Strict inquiry was made amongst the men. No one had seen it The fruit of his toil and prudence, the treasure Love, not Avarice, had twined with his heartstrings, was gone. In its defence he had defeated two pirates, each his superior in force; and now conquered the elements at their maddest. And in the very moment of that great victory--It was gone. CHAPTER XII IN the narrative of home events I skipped a little business, not quite colourless, but irrelevant to the love passages then on hand. It has, however, a connection with the curious events now converging to a point: so, with the reader's permission, I will place it in logical sequence, disregarding the order of time. The day Dr. Sampson splashed among the ducks, and one of them hid till dinner, the rest were seated at luncheon, when two patients were announced as waiting--Mr. and Mrs. Maxley. Sampson refused to see them, on this ground: “I will not feed and heal.” But Mrs. Dodd interceded, and he yielded. “Well, then, show them in here. They are better cracters than pashints.” On this, a stout fresh-coloured woman, the picture of health, was ushered in and curtseyed all round. “Well, what is the matter now?” inquired Sampson rather roughly. “Be seated, Mrs. Maxley,” said Mrs. Dodd, benignly. “I thank ye kindly, ma'am;” and she sat down. “Doctor, it is that pain.” “Well, don't say 'that pain.' Describe it. Now listen all of ye; ye're goen to get a clinical lecture.” “If _you_ please, ma'am,” said the patient, “it takes me here under my left breest, and runs right to my elbow, it do; and bitter bad 'tis while it do last; chokes me mostly; and I feel as I must die: and if I was to move hand or fut, I think I _should_ die, that I do.” “Poor woman!” said Mrs. Dodd. “Oh, she isn't dead yet,” cried Sampson cheerfully. “She'll sell addled eggs over all our tombstones; that is to say, if she minds what I bid her. When was your last spasm?” “No longer agone that yestereen, ma'am; and so I said to my master, 'The doctor he is due to-morrow, Sally up at Albion tells me; and----'” “Whist! whist! who cares what you said to Jack, and Jill said to you? What was the cause?” “The cause! What, of my pain? He says, 'What was the cause?'”