coat and waistcoat, which hung against the wall,
but discovered nothing to reward my search--all that I found there being
a book of needles and thread, a tailor's thimble, a great piece of
tobacco, such as seafaring men always carry with them, a ball of yarn
about half the bigness of an orange, and a hasp-knife.

I cannot tell the bitter disappointment that took possession of me when
my search proved to be of so little avail; for I had felt so sure of
finding the jewel or some traces of it, and had felt so sure of being
able to secure it again, that I could not bear to give up my search, but
continued it after every hope had expired.

When I was at last compelled to acknowledge to myself that I had failed,
I fell into a most unreasonable rage at the poor, helpless,
fever-stricken wretch, though I had but just now been doing all that lay
in my power to aid him and to help him in his trouble and his sickness.
"Why should I not leave him to rot where he is?" I cried, in my anger;
"why should I continue to succor one who has done so much to injure me,
and to rob me of all usefulness and honor in this world?" I ran out of
the cabin, and up and down, as one distracted, hardly knowing whither I
went. But by-and-by it was shown me what was right with more clearness,
and that I should not desert the poor and helpless wretch in his hour of
need: wherefore I went back to the hut and fell to work making a broth
for him against he should awake, for I saw that the fever was broken,
and that he was like to get well.

I did not give over my search for the stone in one day, nor two, nor
three, but continued it whenever the opportunity offered and the pirate
was asleep, but with as little success as at first, though I hunted
everywhere. As for Captain England himself, he began to mend from the
very day upon which I came, for he awoke from his first sleep with his
fever nigh gone, and all the madness cleared away from his head; but he
never once, for a long while, spoke of the strangeness of my caring for
him in his sickness, nor how I came to be there, nor of my reasons for
coming. Nevertheless, from where he lay he followed me with his eyes in
all my motions whenever I was moving about the hut.

One day, however, after I had been there a little over a week, against
which time he was able to lie in a rude hammock, which I had slung up in
front of the door, he asked me of a sudden if any of his cronies had
lent a hand at nursing him w