Being now at sea, Mr. Slim was permitted to go at large as usual. But alas! I had melancholy cause to regret this lenity. Having one day spread my Symzonian manuscripts on the after lockers, to dry away the mould which, from the humid atmosphere of the external world, had accumulated on them, I took a walk on the quarter-deck. On my return to my cabin, I was overwhelmed with consternation and alarm at the disappearance of my books and papers, which were all gone except my journal and volumes of extracts and translations. I immediately summoned the steward, but he could give no account of them. He had not been in my cabin during my absence. The cabin and state-room were searched in vain. The manuscripts were gone! A man who had been working aloft, declared that he saw them going astern soon after I came on deck; and Will Mackerel, who was asleep in his birth, was positive that he saw the shadow of Slim passing from the direction of my cabin towards his state-room. There was great cause to suspect that Slim had been into my cabin, and thrown them all out of the windows to gratify his inveterate malice: but there was no help for it--there was no proof. A monkey, which, out of a foolish partiality to Jack Whiffle, I had permitted him to bring on board, and which visited every part of the ship, and was very mischievous, might have done it. They were irrevocably lost; and though I deplored them more than I should the loss of the mainmast, I was not without consolation. I had read most of them attentively, and being favoured with a very retentive memory, I had treasured up their contents. After this, I excluded Slim from my cabin, and kept a sharp eye upon him. Various modes were suggested by my officers and men, to obviate the difficulty which his refusal to accede to my measures threatened to produce. That which appeared most feasible, was, to confine him in irons, carry him home as a madman, and trust to the effect of his stories about the internal world, for a corroboration of his insanity. I however did not altogether like to trust to this manoeuvre, lest some of my people should prove treacherous, and, by joining their testimony to that of Slim, defeat all my projects. My mind was suddenly diverted from this subject, which had long weighed heavily upon it, by the occurrence of real and immediate danger. CHAPTER XIX. Hurricane off the Isle of France.--Its consequences.--Death of Mr. Slim. We were now to windward off the Isles of France and Bourbon, and nearly up with the land. This tract of ocean is the scene of the most violent hurricanes which are experienced on the external world, and it was our lot to encounter one of the most terrific.