"Open it yourself," he said, "but have a care of my caul, young Tommy, which has saved me fifteen times from drowning; though the Lord knows, I shall never want it any more. This old ship is chartered for a voyage to Kingdom come. Perhaps that Coast-fever has been and spoiled the colour of them. I haven't seen them, now, for a twelvemonth or more; though I feel 'em going into my ribs pretty often. One will be for you, and one for your mother; as soon as you have put me under ground." "Uncle Bill," I said, "we don't mean to do anything of that kind. You shan't go aloft, as you call it, for forty years yet. Why, what most wonderful things, I declare! What lovely gold, and what amazing stones!" He looked at me with a very pleasant smile; "Something like your hair, the gold is spun up, Tommy, ain't it? Only yours have got more touch of nut-colour in it. Indian work, that is, I reckon; stolen out of some wreck, with the stones, no doubt. No savage work there, and no English goldsmith, nor French either, could come near it. Mysore, or Tanjore, or Trichinopoly; but I believe the stones must have come from Borneo. At least, so the only knowing man I ever showed them to, thought they must have done, though he couldn't say how; and _Jumbilug_ had worn them for three hundred years, at a rough guess; for ten men's time, the savages told Edwards. He told me, he believed they must be blue diamonds; but I never heard of such things; I call them sapphires. And I wouldn't tell you, what the island is--why, do you think? Because such a Government as we've got now, would insist upon what they call 'restitution.' They'd send out one of them iron pig troughs things they have turned the British navy into to re-build _Jumbilug_, and fit her up again, with her eyes at our expense; and all the rest at the cost of the British taxpayers; and then give her a Royal salute, and steam away, for fear of hurting the feelings of the natives." "And perhaps," I replied--for this reminded me of Roly's views upon that subject--"they would put half a hundred of plump Englishmen ashore, as a meet and proper offering to the injured _Jumbilug_." CHAPTER XXXIII. STRONG INTENTIONS. Such a weight came off the heart of good Uncle William, and such a relief was afforded to his ribs--where the parcel had made a great hole, as he showed me like the postmaster's stamp on a bonnet-box--that as soon as he restored his caul to its proper and inborn aptitude of comfort, he was enabled to be just to another tidy quid, and another glass of grog, not so very fountain-heady.