'Gothic appeal to arms,' and was therefore the more irate.

These circumstances must be taken into consideration in Hook's favour in
examining the charge of embezzlement. It must also be stated that the
information of the deficit was sent in a letter to the governor by a man
named Allan, chief clerk in the Treasury, who had, for irregular
conduct, been already threatened with dismissal. Allan had admitted that
he had known of the deficit for fifteen months, and yet he had not, till
he was himself in trouble, thought of making it known to the proper
authorities. Before his examination, which of course followed, could be
concluded, Allan committed suicide. Now, does it not, on the face of it,
seem of the highest probability that this man was the real delinquent,
and that knowing that Hook had all the responsibility, and having taken
fair precautions against his own detection, he had anticipated a
discovery of the affair by a revelation, incriminating the treasurer?
_Quien sabe_;--dead men tell no tales.

The chest, however, was examined, and the deficit found far greater yet
than had been reported. Hook could not explain, could not understand it
at all; but if not criminal, he had necessarily been careless. He was
arrested, thrown into prison, and by the first vessel despatched to
England to take his trial, his property of every kind having been sold
for the Government. Hook, in utter destitution, might be supposed to
have lost his usual spirits, but he could not resist a joke. At St.
Helena he met an old friend going out to the Cape, who, surprised at
seeing him on his return voyage after a residence of only five years,
said: 'I hope you are not going home for your health.'--'Why,' said
Theodore, 'I am sorry to say they think there is something wrong in the
_chest._ Something wrong in the chest' became henceforward the ordinary
phrase in London society in referring to Hook's scrape.