“On the date I have just mentioned—­I mean the fifteenth of the month—­my master himself informed me that he had been dreadfully disappointed by a letter received from you, which had come in the morning from foreign parts, and had brought him bad news.  He did not tell me what the news was—­but I have never, in all the years I have passed in the admiral’s service, seen him so distressingly upset, and so unlike himself, as he was on that day.  At night his uneasiness seemed to increase.  He was in such a state of irritation that he could not bear the sound of Mr. Mazey’s hard breathing outside his door, and he laid his positive orders on the old man to go into one of the bedrooms for that night.  Mr. Mazey, to his own great regret, was of course obliged to obey.

“Our only means of preventing the admiral from leaving his room in his sleep, if the fit unfortunately took him, being now removed, Mr. Mazey and I agreed to keep watch by turns through the night, sitting, with the door ajar, in one of the empty rooms near our master’s bed-chamber.  We could think of nothing better to do than this, knowing he would not allow us to lock him in, and not having the door key in our possession, even if we could have ventured to secure him in his room without his permission.  I kept watch for the first two hours, and then Mr. Mazey took my place.  After having been some little time in my own room, it occurred to me that the old man was hard of hearing, and that if his eyes grew at all heavy in the night, his ears were not to be trusted to warn him if anything happened.  I slipped on my clothes again, and went back to Mr. Mazey.  He was neither asleep nor awake—­he was between the two.  My mind misgave me, and I went on to the admiral’s room.  The door was open, and the bed was empty.

“Mr. Mazey and I went downstairs instantly.  We looked in all the north rooms, one after another, and found no traces of him.  I thought of the drawing-room next, and, being the more active of the two, went first to examine it.  The moment I turned the sharp corner of the passage, I saw my master coming toward me through the open drawing-room door, asleep and dreaming, with his keys in his hands.  The sliding door behind him was open also; and the fear came to me then, and has remained with me ever since, that his dream had led him through the Banqueting-Hall into the east rooms.  We abstained from waking him, and followed his steps until he returned of his own accord to his bed-chamber.  The next morning, I grieve to say, all the bad symptoms came back; and none of the remedies employed have succeeded in getting the better of them yet.  By the doctor’s advice, we refrained from telling the admiral what had happened.  He is still under the impression that he passed the night as usual in his own room.

“I have been careful to enter into all the particulars of this unfortunate accident, because neither Mr. Mazey nor myself desire to screen ourselves from blame, if blame we have deserved.  We both acted for the best, and we both beg and pray you will consider our responsible situation, and come as soon as possible to St. Crux.  Our honored master is very hard to manage; and the doctor thinks, as we do, that your presence is wanted in the house.