Somehow or another, after this--that is, I can only time it by the fact of my having called for a fourth or fifth glass of iced drink, or it may have been my half-dozenth, for time does fly so,--the Captain having, I suspect, drank the greater part of the previous one whenever I didn't happen to be looking that way--I begin to think I must have once more given my assent by nodding to a lot of stuff of which I could not nave heard more than three pages, as, when I arouse myself from my reverie, the tumbler is empty, the Captain has gone out, and so has my cigar. AWAY! AWAY! "Action is the word!" said I, suddenly jumping up; and, having seized a spade, and provided myself with a large sack, which I carried across my shoulders, I set off for the diamond-fields. Unrecognised by a soul, I went to work on my own account; and the brilliant things I saw--far more brilliant than even the witticisms of WOLFFY, or the sarcasms of ARTHUR B! Into my sack go thousands of diamonds! The sack is full! _Aladdin_ and the Lamp not in it with me! "Hallo!" shouts a voice, gruffly. I could see no one. "_Vox et præterea nil_," as we used to say at Eton. Suddenly I felt myself collared. I made a gallant attempt at resistance. A spade is a spade I know, but what is a spade and one against twenty with pistols and daggers, headed by the redoubtable Filliblusterer THOMAS TIDDLER himself? "Strip him!" said T.T., shortly. [Illustration] Will you believe that the only way in which in this country they arrive at implicitly believing every word you utter, is by denuding you of all your clothes, so as to get at the naked truth, holding you up by the heels for the purpose of shaking the diamonds out of you, in case any are concealed in your hair, mouth, ears, eyes and so forth. "He has diamonds on the brain!" I hear some ruffian exclaim, and in another second-- * * * * * Well--what happened I cannot tell you: I must have fainted. When I came to myself I was lying by the chair in which I had been previously sitting when listening to the Captain's reading, and bending over me with a glass of water in his hand, was the faithful and clever Doctor whose companionship on this voyage of discovery I am daily and hourly learning to appreciate at its proper value. I fancy the ship's crew were round about me, with the Engineer and the Chaplain. I feel inclined to say, "HARDY, HARDY, kiss me, HARDY!" and then something about "Tell them at home"--but the words stick in my throat, as they did in _Macbeth's_ throat (only they were other words) when he was on his throat-sticking expedition. (Little Shakspearian reference thrown in here, and no extra charge.)