'Promise me, George, to wear it ever. It saved your life to-night, I doubt not.'
'What! Does it save from death?'
'From sudden death,' answered Mehalah. 'I told you so before, in the boat.'
'I forgot about it, Glory.'
'I will tell you now all about it, my friend. The charm belonged to my mother's mother. She, as I daresay you have heard, was a gipsy. My grandfather fell in love with her and married her. He was a well-to-do man, owning a bit of land of his own; but he would go to law with a neighbour and lost it, and it went to the lawyer. Well, my grandmother brought the charm with her, and it has been in the family ever since. It had been in the gipsy family of my grandmother time out of mind, and was lent about when any of the men went on dangerous missions. No one who wears it can die a sudden death from violence—that is'—Mehalah qualified the assertion, 'on land.'
'It does not preserve one on the water then?' said George, with an incredulous laugh.
'I won't say that. It surely did so to-night. It saves from shot and stab.'
'Not from drowning?'
'I think not.'
'I must get a child's caul, and then I shall be immortal.'