“The object of my journey is now accomplished:  and it only remains to hasten home with all speed.  But I am feeling strangely unwell as I write this.  My head has never fully recovered that blow at Bombay, and I think the hours during which I remained exposed to the sun’s rays, by the side of that awful image, must have affected it.  Or perhaps the fatigue of the journey has worn me out.  If I am going to sicken I must hide my secret.  It would be safer to bury it with the Journal, at any rate for the time, somewhere in the garden here.  I have a tin box that will just answer the purpose.  My head is giving me agony.  I can write no more.”

CHAPTER X.

CONTAINS THE THIRD AND LAST PART OF MY FATHER’S JOURNAL:  SETTING FORTH THE MUTINY ON BOARD THE BELLE FORTUNE.

“June 19th.—­Strange that wherever I am hospitably entertained I recompense my host by falling ill in his house.  Since my last entry in this Journal I have been lying at the gate of death, smitten down with a sore sickness.  It seems that the long exposure and weariness of my journey to the Peak threw me into a fever:  but of this I should soon have recovered, were it not for my head, which I fear will never be wholly right again.  That cowardly blow upon Malabar Hill has made a sad wreck of me; twice, when I seemed in a fair way to recovery, has my mind entirely given way.  Mr. Eversleigh, indeed, assures me that my life has more than once been despaired of—­and then what would have become of poor Margery?  I hope I am thankful to God for so mercifully sparing my poor life, the more so because conscious how unworthy I am to appear before Him.

“I trust I did not betray my secret in my wanderings.  Mr. Eversleigh tells me I talked the strangest stuff at times—­about rubies and skeletons, and a certain dreadful face from which I was struggling to escape.  But the security of my Journal and the golden clasp, which I recovered to-day, somewhat reassures me.  I am allowed to walk in the garden for a short space every day, but not until to-day have I found strength to dig for my hoard.  I can hardly describe my emotions on finding it safe and sound.

“Poor Margery!  How anxious she must be getting at my silence.  I will write her to-morrow—­at least I will begin my letter to-morrow, for I shall not have strength to finish it in one day.  Even now I ought not to be writing, but I cannot forbear making an entry in my recovered Journal, if only to record my thankfulness to Heaven for my great deliverance.

“June 22nd.—­I have written to Margery, but torn the letter up on second thoughts, as I had better wait until I hear news of a vessel in which I can safely travel home.  Mr. Eversleigh (who is very kind to me, though not so hearty as Mr. Sanderson) will not hear of my starting in my present condition.  I wonder in what part of the world Colliver is travelling now.