o the water, and Bobbie jumped
in too; and a naughty shark hurt poor Bobbie and made his leg bleed; so
papa and Mr Evelin and some sailors brought him home and put him to
bed; and he's up there now, mama, _so_ poorly."

Mrs Staunton turned mutely to her husband for an explanation. For a
single moment she felt quite incapable of speaking intelligibly. Her
mental vision conjured up a picture of her child in some terrible
danger, and, in her anxiety, her mind refused to take in more than that
one awful fact, overlooking for the time the circumstance of Bob having
received an injury. The danger to which May had been exposed; that was
all she thought about--all she _could_ think about just then; and, until
she had heard the story, she had not attention for anything or anyone
else.

So Captain Staunton bade them all sit down, and then he related the full
details of May's adventure, with Bob's gallant rescue of her, and the
unfortunate accident which accompanied it. It is not necessary to
repeat the frequent exclamations of horror and admiration which were
elicited from the fair auditors as the various details of the occurrence
were related; nor to describe the convulsive way in which May was
clasped to her mother's breast, and fondled and cried over by all three
of the sensitive loving women together as they listened to the story of
her terrible peril. Suffice it say that, when the narrative was over,
the womenkind went with one accord up to Bob's bedside, and there so
overwhelmed him with thanks and praises that the poor fellow was quite
overcome, so that Lance had finally to interfere, and with mock severity
order their immediate withdrawal.

Later on, when the excitement had somewhat subsided, and while they were
all sitting down quietly to tea, the ladies produced their nuggets,
passing them round for inspection, and relating the manner in which they
had been found. Lance's experience as a gold-digger now served the
party in good stead, for he had no sooner taken the dull yellow lumps
into his hand than he pronounced them to be veritable nuggets of pure
gold; and after extracting from the fair finders as accurate a
description as they could give him of the locality in which the
discovery had been made, he declared his belief that one or more
"pockets" of gold existed in the immediate vicinity of the pool, and
said he would take an early opportunity of personally inspecting the
spot.

The somewhat exciting event