to express myself too strongly, because the facts appear against me, but

the thing is impossible."

Dinner came to us not long after, and we ate it on deck, in a grim

silence, each privately racking his brain for some solution of the

mysteries. I was indeed so swallowed up in these considerations, that

the wreck, the lagoon, the islets, and the strident sea-fowl, the strong

sun then beating on my head, and even the gloomy countenance of the

captain at my elbow, all vanished from the field of consciousness. My

mind was a blackboard, on which I scrawled and blotted out hypotheses;

comparing each with the pictorial records in my memory: cyphering with

pictures. In the course of this tense mental exercise I recalled and

studied the faces of one memorial masterpiece, the scene of the saloon;

and here I found myself, on a sudden, looking in the eyes of the Kanaka.

"There's one thing I can put beyond doubt, at all events," I cried,

relinquishing my dinner and getting briskly afoot. "There was that

Kanaka I saw in the bar with Captain Trent, the fellow the newspapers

and ship's articles made out to be a Chinaman. I mean to rout his

quarters out and settle that."

"All right," said Nares. "I'll lazy off a bit longer, Mr. Dodd; I feel

pretty rocky and mean."

We had thoroughly cleared out the three after-compartments of the ship:

all the stuff from the main cabin and the mate's and captain's quarters

lay piled about the wheel; but in the forward stateroom with the two

bunks, where Nares had said the mate and cook most likely berthed,

we had as yet done nothing. Thither I went. It was very bare; a few

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