and
as it was necessary that some one should be constantly at his side,
Jacob was appointed to that duty.

It would have been impossible to have found a more tender nurse, and no
one could have attended more carefully to the directions given by the
surgeon.

The fever the surgeon dreaded, however, came on, and for several days
Harry was delirious. Often the name of "May" was on his lips, and
Jacob, as he listened, discovered that his lieutenant loved her.

Several days went by, and Harry appeared to get worse. On his return to
consciousness he felt how completely his strength had deserted him, and
though the doctor tried to keep up his spirits by telling him that he
would get better in time, so great was his weakness that he felt himself
to be dying. He was anxious not to alarm his friend Headland; but as
Jacob stood by his bedside, he told him what he believed would be the
case.

"And I hope, my good fellow, that you will be able to return to your
home, and if you do, I wish you to bear a message to your father and
mother, and to your sister. I know that she no longer lives with them,
and has become fit to occupy a different station in life; but you, I
doubt not, love her notwithstanding as much as ever. Tell your parents
how much I esteem them, and say to your sister that my love is
unchangeable, that my dying thoughts were of her, my last prayers for
her welfare. I have done what I could to secure it, and have left her
all the property I possess. Mr Shallard, the lawyer at Morbury, will
enable her to obtain possession of it."

"Miss May my sister!" exclaimed Jacob in a tone which aroused Harry's
attention. "I will tell her what you say, sir, if my eyes are ever
blessed by seeing her again, but she is not father and mother's child.
Father found her on board a wreck when she was a little child, and
though she is now a grown young lady, she does not mind still calling
them as she did when she lived with us, and that's made you fancy she is
their daughter."

This answer of Jacob's had a wonderful effect on Harry. He asked
question after question, entirely forgetting the weakness of which he
had been complaining. Jacob gave him a full account of the way May had
been preserved, how she had been brought up by his parents, and how the
Miss Pembertons had invited her to come and live with them.

At length the doctor coming into the cabin put an end to the
conversation.

From that moment Harry began to rec