"You are not strong enough yet to get up, Basil."
"I don't want to get up. I want to see what the scoundrels have left in my pockets." He felt, and cried: "Everything gone! my purse, my pocket-book, everything--even a lock of my mother's hair. They might have left me that!"
"They made a clean sweep, I suppose," said Chaytor.
He had considered this matter while Basil lay unconscious, and had come to the conclusion that it would be wiser to strip Basil's pockets bare than to make a selection of one or two things, which was scarcely what a thief in his haste would have done. Thus it was that Basil found his pockets completely empty.
"You have for a friend the neediest beggar that ever drew breath," said Basil bitterly.
"I'll put up with that," said Chaytor, with great cheerfulness. "Now, don't worry yourself about anything whatever. You shall share with me to the last pipe of tobacco, and when that's gone we will work for more."
"Ah, tobacco! Would a whiff or two do me any harm?"
"Do you good. You'll have to smoke out of my pipe; the villains have stolen yours."
He filled his pipe, and, giving it to Basil, held a lighted match to the tobacco. Basil, lying on his side, watched the curling smoke as it floated above his head. Distressed as he was, the evidences of Newman Chaytor's goodness were to some extent a compensating balance to his troubles. And now he was enjoying the soothing influence of a quiet smoke. Those persons who regard the weed as noxious and baleful have a perfect right to their opinion, but they cannot ignore the fact that to many thousands of thousands of estimable beings it serves as a comforter, frequently indeed as a healer. It was so in the present instance. As the smoke wreathed and curled above him an ineffable consolation crept into Basil's soul. Things seemed at their blackest; the peace and hope of a bright future had been destroyed; the man who had grown to honour him, and who had assured him of the future, had with awful suddenness breathed his last breath; the little child he loved, and to whom he was to have been guardian and protector, was thrust into the care of a malignant, remorseless man; suspicion of foul play had been thrown upon him; Old Corrie had lent him his mare, and he had allowed it to be stolen; he had been so near to death that but one man, and he a short time since an utter stranger, stood between him and eternity; and he was lying now on a bed of sickness an utter, utter beggar. Grim enough in all conscience, but the simple smoking of a pipe put a different and a better aspect upon it. There was hope in the future; he was young, he would get well and strong again; Anthony Bidaud was dead, but spiritual comfort died not with life; he would see Annette once more, and would take his leave of her assured of her love, so far as a child could give such an assurance, and in the hope of meeting her again in years to come; he would outlive the injurious suspicion of wrong-dealing which he did not doubt Gilbert Bidaud was spreading against him; and he would be able to vindicate himself in Old Corrie's eyes and perhaps by-and-by recompense the old fellow for the loss of the more. Much virtue in a pipe when it can so transform the prospect stretching before a man brought to such a pass as Basil had been.
"Yes," he said aloud, "all will come right in the end."