But she is very much reduced and the symptoms are grave.
A recurrence of the fever--"

"But such a fever is so easily cured. I know what you are hinting at,
doctor. Yet I cannot think--You will not let her die. After surmounting so
many dangers, and being so miraculously rescued, and with prospects so
fair, it would be too cruel."

"I will do my best, sir, you may be sure. But I thought it my duty to
prepare you for the worst. The issue is with God."

* * * * *

This is a part of my story on which I care not to dwell. Even yet I cannot
think of it without grief and pain. My dear wife was taken from me. She
died in my arms, her hand in mine, as sweetly and serenely as she had
lived. But for Captain Bigelow and his officers I should have buried
myself with Angela in the fathomless sea. I owed him my life a second
time--such as it was--more, for he taught me the duty and grace of
resignation, showed me that, though to cherish the memory of a great
sorrow ennobles a man, he who abandons himself to unmeasured grief is as
pusillanimous as he who shirks his duty on the field of battle.

Captain Bigelow had a great heart and a chivalrous nature. After Angela's
death he treated me more as a cherished son than as a casual guest. Before
we reached Panama we were fast friends. He provided me with clothing and
gave me money for my immediate wants, as to have attempted to dispose of
any of my diamonds there, or at Chagres, might have exposed me to
suspicion, possibly to danger. In acknowledgement of his kindness and as a
souvenir of our friendship, I persuaded him to accept one of the finest
stones in my collection, and we parted with mutual assurances of goodwill
and not without hope of meeting again.

Ramon of course, went with me. Bill Yawl, equally of of course, I left
behind. He had slung his hammock in the Constellation's fo'castle, and
became captain of the foretop.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

OLD FRIENDS AND A NEW FOE.

I had made up my mind to see Carmen, if he still lived; and finding at
Chagres a schooner bound for La Guayra I took passages in her for myself
and Ramon, all the more willingly as the captain proposed to put in at
Curacoa. It occurred to me that Van Voorst, the Dutch merchant in whose
hands I had left six hundred pounds, would be a likely man to advise me as
to the disposal of my diamonds--if he also still lived.

Rather to my surprise, for people die fast in the tropics