m almost distracted."

"Still, you seem well enough; you are as hale and hearty as if you
had just been keel-hauled and got a new rig."

"It is not my body that is suffering, Willis; it is my mind."

"Whatever is the matter?"

"Willis, _my wife is dying_."

And so it was. For a long period Becker's wife had been a prey to
racking pains, which, so to speak, she hid from herself, the better to
conceal them from others, just as if suffering had been a crime. After
having resisted for fourteen years the afflictions of exile, long and
perilous expeditions, nights passed under tents, humid winters and
fierce burning summers, her health had, at length, succumbed, not all
at once, like fabrics sapped by gunpowder, but little by little, like
those that are demolished piecemeal with the pickaxe of the workman.
Day by day she grew more and more feeble, without those who were
constantly by her side observing the insidious workings of disease.
Like Mucius Scaevola, who held his hands in a burning brazier without
uttering a word, she so effectually hid her griefs within the recesses
of her own bosom, that no one even suspected her illness.

"But, Mr. Becker," said Willis, "I saw your wife this morning, and she
seemed as well as usual."

"Yes, _seemed_, Willis, that is true enough; not to give us pain, she
has concealed her illness from us all. It is only within the last
twelve hours that I accidentally discovered that she has been long
laboring under some fearful malady."

"Do you know the nature of the disease?"

"No, that I have no means of ascertaining; it may be a distinct form
of disease, or it may be a complication of disorders, which I know
not."

"It would not signify about the name if we only knew a remedy."

"True; but I dread some malady of a cancerous type, which could not be
eradicated without surgical skill."

"I wish I had been born a doctor instead of a pilot," sighed Willis.

"I cannot see her perish before my eyes."

"Certainly not, Mr. Becker; it would never do to allow a ship to sink
if she can be saved."

"Well, what is to be done?"

"There lies the difficulty; had it been a question of anything that
floats on the water, I might have suggested a remedy; but, in this
case, I am fairly run aground."

"I know too well what must be done, Willis. In cases of ordinary
maladies, with care and due precaution, proper nourishment and time,
Nature will generally effect a cure."

"Nature has no diplom