as I wanted to know
what it was about had kept it. With that I put it away in the trunk, and
changed the subject by turning my attention to snooding a score or two
of fish hooks for conger fishing.

Next day when I saw an opportunity I got away to a quiet spot, and
puzzled myself with the hieroglyphic-looking portion of the paper which
appeared thus:--

[Illustration:-THE PUZZLING DOCUMENT-]

I puzzled over it for an hour, and then gave it up, not having obtained
the slightest clue to the meaning, if any meaning it had. Then I
reflected that a man was not likely to go to the trouble of writing out
a long list of articles, and sketching a skull with particular lines and
figures radiating from it for nought, to say nothing of hiding the paper
away in such a cosy little nook as the one in which I found it. Thus
reflecting I turned along the middle path homeward, wondering if some
old privateer skipper, or even pirate, had long years ago hidden the
articles mentioned in the list in some part of the island, or could it
refer to some treasure which--_slip! bump! crash!!_

I opened my eyes and found Alec bending over me, while "Begum" sat
licking my hand. I tried to speak, but did so with extreme difficulty,
as if something were amiss with my chest. Whatever had happened! I tried
to rise, but had not the power.

"How do you feel?" said Alec.

[Illustration: A TERRIBLE FALL FROM THE CLIFFS.]

To which I replied by asking him a question,

"Whatever is the matter, Alec, am I hurt?" at which he laughed and said,
"I ought to know better than he could tell me; perhaps I would inform
him what I was doing there, and why, for more than half an hour since he
found me I had been insensible?"

Then I remembered slipping carelessly over the edge of the path at a
part that was not at all dangerous, and bumping myself against a
granite rock, but beyond that I remembered nothing whatever.

Alec had missed me for nearly three hours, so calling to "Begum," he
strolled along to see what I was doing. It was our invariable custom to
tell each other where we were going, and what we were going to do,
whenever we separated for a time; but on this occasion I had purposely
omitted this precaution. The dog had found me on the lower pathway
doubled up, or as Alec put it, "Standing on my head in a very
undignified position, with my back against a granite boulder."

I could not rise, in fact could scarcely move, so battered and bruised
was