He staggered up in search of a water-jug, and then found that he had lain abed with his clothes on. A pleasant breeze came through the open window; the waves of the bright blue sea were rolling against Tintagel cliffs and up Boscastle creek; hundreds of birds were twittering in the warm spring sunshine about the clematis and briar that covered all the tavern walls, and the hum of the bee came softly and gratefully to his ear, as he strove to recall the events of the past night. Sharkley!--it had been spent with Sharkley the solicitor, and where now was he? The papers! He mechanically put his trembling hand to his coat pocket, and then, as a pang of fear shot through his heart, under the mattress. They were not there; vacantly he groped and gasped, as recollections flashed upon him, and the chain of ideas became more distinct; madly he tossed up all the bedding and scattered it about. The case was gone, and with it the precious papers, too, were gone--GONE! Sobered in an instant by this overwhelming catastrophe--most terribly sobered--a hoarse cry of mingled rage and despair escaped him. The landlord, who had been listening for an outbreak of some kind, now came promptly up. "Beast, drunkard, fool that I have been!" exclaimed Derrick, in bitter accents of self-reprobation; "this is how I have kept my promise to a dying master--duped by the first scoundrel who came across me! I have been juggled--drugged, perhaps--then juggled, and robbed after!" "Robbed of what?" asked the burly landlord, laughing. "Papers--my master's papers," groaned Derrick. "Bah--I thought as much; now look ye here, old fellow----" "Robbed by a low lawyer," continued Derrick, hoarsely; "and no fiend begotten in hell can be lower in the scale of humanity or more dangerous to peaceful society. Oh, how often has poor master said so," he added, waxing magniloquent, and almost beside himself with grief and rage; "how often have I heard him say, 'I have had so much to do with lawyers, that I have lost all proper abhorrence for their master, the devil.'" "Now, I ain't going to stand any o' this nonsense--just you clear out," said the landlord, peremptorily. Then as his passionate Cornish temper got the better of his reason, Derrick on hearing this suddenly seized Jack Trevanion's successor by the throat, and dashing him on the floor, accused him of being art and part, or an aider and abettor of the robbery, in which, to say truth, he was not. His cries speedily brought the county constabulary, to whom, by Sharkley's advice, he had previously given a hint, and before the sun was well in the west, honest Derrick Braddon was raving almost with madness and despair under safe keeping in the nearest station house. CHAPTER IV. THE HOPE OF THE DEAD.