across in front of
the fireplace. After that even the wind hushed and the moonlight went
out.

I advanced cautiously over the embers, and felt my way down the room and
into the passage without. There, where the conspirators had left it,
stood the candle, and the tinder-box beside it. I carried the light
back to the hearth, shading it with my hand for fear any one without
might see it, and set it down beside the flagstone. All over this stone
I groped without finding any trace of a rift or any hint of how to lift
so formidable a weight. It seemed fast set in the boards, and gave no
sound of hollowness or symptom of unsteadiness when I tried it.

I was almost beginning to lose heart, when I knelt by chance, not on the
stone, but on a short board at the side, which ran at right angles with
the general planks, and seemed intended as part of a kind of framework
to the stone. This board creaked under my weight; and when I looked
more closely at it, I discovered a couple of sunk hinges let deep into
the plank adjoining, and covered over with dust and rust. With my
sailor's knife I cleared away at the edges, and after several trials,
one of which broke my blade, I managed to raise it and swing it back on
its hinges.

The slight cavity below was full of dirt and rubbish, and it was not
till I had cleared these away that I found it ran partly under the
adjoining flagstone. The hole was too small to look into, but I could
get in my hand, and after some groping came upon what I wanted.

It was a small leather packet, carefully folded and tied round, not much
larger than an envelope, and fastened on either side with a wafer.
Slipped under the outer string was a smaller folded paper, on the cover
of which I recognised, to my great amazement, my own name.

I thrust both packet and paper into my pocket, and after satisfying
myself that the hole contained nothing more, filled it up again, and
restored the hinged board to its old position. Then I extinguished and
replaced the candle, and a few minutes later was hurrying, with my
precious freight, down the rocky corridor towards the cave where I had
left my boat.

I was not long in getting into the outer world once more. My boat I
left where it was, and scrambled up the rocks to the place from which I
had once watched the _Arrow_ as she lay at anchor. Here I flung myself
on the turf and waited impatiently for daylight.

It came at last, and at its first glow I took the