hole and the
noise stopped. And I stayed through the shake, and saw the lights from
the pit. God help me, I wanted to jump, too!

I am going to leave this place tomorrow. I have repaired the
quarterboat, and hopeless or not, I will try to reach Kamchatka. It is
better than to stay here, and go mad, and follow Silva!

I have written the secret of the cave on a piece of the lining of my
parka, though God knows if I shall ever need it. I have a little beef,
and biscuit, and the breaker from the wreck of the whaleboat. Little
enough! If I only had the latitude and longitude of this place, I
might guess my chances. But--not even a compass!

"The next entry is just a scrawl," said Little Billy. "It is barely
legible."

I am in the fog--the terrible gray fog! No water! I see Alice in the
fog!

"And then--the end."

I see Silva sitting opposite me. He looks, looks! Lord God, hast thou
deserted me?

CHAPTER XI

THE CODE

There was a moment's silence as Little Billy finished reading. There
was in the hunchback's face, and in the faces of the girl and the old
captain, a somber understanding of John Winters's fate.

The whaleman's pitiful experience was a commonplace of the sea, and it
required no effort of mind on their part to vision the tragedy of an
open boat on an empty sea. But Martin was more sharply impressed. The
sea held as yet no commonplaces for him, and the poignant question that
ended the castaway's chronicle kindled a flame of pity. Martin had the
picture mind, and a habit of dramatizing events.

As Little Billy read, Martin had unconsciously followed the narrative
with his mind's eye, building a series of vivid, connected pictures.
He had witnessed the battle with the whales, the finding of the
treasure, had peered baffled into the blanket of Bering fog, had seen
the leaping breakers at the base of the smoking mountain, had
excursioned through the caves by Winters's side, and, at last, had
beheld clearly the little open boat, with its despairing occupant,
disappear into the gray mist.

"The poor devil!" cried Martin.

His words broke the spell of silence that was upon the table.

"Yes--the poor devil!" echoed Little Billy. "My very words, as I
finished reading, there in Kim Chee's place. 'The poor devil!' A
fitting epitaph."

"But why an epitaph?" asked Martin quickly. Visions of an
eleventh-hour rescue were surging through his mind. He felt one was
necessar