red to sink down out of sight as a door was shut, and I
heard him muttering as I thought to himself, and he seemed to say
something about being better that everything should have been lost than
that have happened.

I couldn't make it out, only that he was in terrible trouble, and his
face looked haggard and thin as he rose up again and bent over me to
take me in his arms as he looked closely in my face.

Then, as he held me to his breast, I could feel that he was sobbing, and
I heard him say distinctly in a low reverent tone:

"Thank God--thank God!"

CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN.

LAST MEMORIES.

I heard all about it afterwards; how they had hauled up quickly as I did
not rise to the surface, in the belief that I might be clinging still to
the basket; but though the last chest was there, that was all.

Bigley seized the handles and went down, staying so long that everybody
grew cold with horror, and when they hauled up he was helpless, and with
one hand holding fast to the side of the basket.

It was our foreman who went down next, and managed to get his arm round
me, where I was entangled in a tremendous growth of sea-weed, and with
one of my legs hooked, as it were, between and round a piece of rock.
By great good fortune he was able to drag me out, and rise with me to
the surface, but so overcome that he could hardly take a stroke; and as
for me, Doctor Chowne had a long battle before he could bring me back as
it were to life.

I have little more to tell of my early life there on the North Devon
coast, for after that time rolled on very peacefully. We had no more
visits from the French, not even from Captain Gualtiere, and we saw no
more of old Jonas Uggleston. He had settled in Dunquerque, he told his
son in his letters, and these always contained the advice that he was on
no account to leave the service of Captain Duncan, but to do his duty by
him as an honest man.

And truly Bigley Uggleston did do his duty by my father and by me, for
year by year we grew closer friends, the more so that Bob Chowne drifted
away after his course of training in London, and finally became a ship's
surgeon.

As for us, we led a very uneventful life, going steadily on with the
management of the mine, which never was productive enough to make a huge
fortune, but quite sufficient to keep my father fairly wealthy, and give
employment and bread to quite a little village which grew up in the Gap.

For the recovery of the silver