Derrick's reflections on finding himself alone in the sinking ship were far from soothing. He had death before him, in its most terrible form, by slow starvation; and all the horrors he had read or heard of in shipwrecked men occurred to him with vivid minutiæ most painful to endure. But he prayed quite as much that he might be spared to fulfil the wishes of his master as for the prolongation of his own humble life, and the honest fellow's supplications were not uttered in vain, for ere the twilight came, a vessel bound for Tasmania took him off the wreck; and now, after long, perilous, and penniless wanderings, he found himself once more safe in old England. Sharkley, who had listened to all this narrative with deep interest--not that he cared a jot about the escapes, the sufferings, or the perseverance of the narrator, but because it formed a necessary sequence to the other portions of his story, which related to Montreal--now said,-- "After all you have undergone, you will, I hope, be careful to whom you show, and with whom you trust, papers, upon the production of which, in a proper and legal manner, so much depends." "Make yourself perfectly easy on that head," replied Braddon, winking knowingly, as he refilled his pipe. "Lord Lamorna would give a good round sum, I doubt not--a good round sum, my dear sir, to possess them." "I am neither a dear sir, nor a cheap one," growled Derrick; "if you mean by Lord Lamorna Master Denzil, the papers are his already by right; if you mean Downie Trevelyan, they sha'n't be his, even if he piled up money as high as Bron Welli. Ah--he had ever an eye to the main chance." "And haven't we all?" "In some ways, perhaps, more or less; but harkee, comrade, no more hints like that you gave just now. I had a kind, good master, and was his faithful servant. I am an old soldier, and know what honour is, though my coat be a tattered one." "Yet, if I have heard aright, you were not always a soldier," sneered Sharkley, who despised monetary scruples that were beyond his comprehension. "No," replied Braddon, his wrinkled cheek flushing with anger as he spoke; "I was in my youth a smuggler, and here in Cornwall ain't ashamed to say so. I know well the Isles of Scilly, and every creek and cranny in those whose inhabitants are only gulls and rabbits; for in them, as in the Piper's Hole at Tresco, and in many a place hereby known only to myself now, have I at the risk of my life by steel and lead, and storm, run the kegs of Cognac and the negrohead, that never paid duty to the Crown. But what of that; I am not a smuggler now, though I had to bolt for being one! I suppose few will dispute that you have been a lawyer in heart since you first saw the light, or learned to steal your school-mates' apples and nuts, till able to aim at bigger prizes--eh?" "Come, don't let us quarrel after so pleasant an evening, Mr. Braddon," urged Sharkley, deprecatingly.