ore, and her heart misgave her as she read of peril to
soul and body sternly hinted at therein. Also, her best-beloved
brother had gone down in a squall off the Cape of Good Hope, so that
she always looked upon the sea as a cruel and treacherous foe, and
shuddered to think of it as lying in wait for her Ezekiel's life.
It came to pass, therefore, that for two years the young wife's tears
and entreaties prevailed; but at the end of this time, matters
growing worse and worse, and also because it seemed hard that Lantrig
should pass away from the Trenoweths while, for aught we knew,
treasure was to be had for the looking, poverty and my father's wish
prevailed, and it was determined, with the tearful assent of my
mother, that he should start to seek this Elihu Sanderson, of Bombay,
and, with good fortune, save the failing house of the Trenoweths.
Only he waited until the worst of the winter was over, and then,
having commended us both to the care of his aunt, Elizabeth Loveday,
of Lizard Town, and provided us with the largest sum he could scrape
together (and small indeed it was), he started for the port of
Plymouth one woeful morning in February, and thence sailed away in
the good ship _Golden Wave_ to win his inheritance.

CHAPTER II.

TELLS HOW MY FATHER WENT TO SEEK THE TREASURE; AND HOW MY MOTHER
HEARD A CRY IN THE NIGHT.

So my father sailed away, carrying with him--sewn for safety in his
jersey's side--the Will and the small clasped Bible; nor can I think
of stranger equipment for the hunting of earthly treasure. And the
great iron key hung untouched from the beam, while the spiders
outvied one another in wreathing it with their webs, knowing it to be
the only spot in Lantrig where they were safe from my mother's broom.
It is with these spiders that my recollections begin, for of my
father, before he sailed away, remembrance is dim and scanty, being
confined to the picture of a tall fair man, with huge shoulders and
wonderful grey eyes, that changed in a moment from the stern look he
must have inherited from Amos to an extraordinary depth of love and
sympathy. Also I have some faint memories of a pig, named Eleazar
(for no well-explained reason), which fell over the cliff one night
and awoke the household with its cries. But this I mention only
because it happened, as I learn, before my father's going, and not
for any connection with my story. We must have lived a very quiet
life at Lantrig, even as