e door, I found her lying with a wound just below the
heart. She had just time to point to her child before she died.
Was ever so ghastly a tragedy?

"Oct. 10th.--Awake all night, trying to soothe the cries of the
child, and at the same time keeping a good look-out for the
mutineers. The sea is terribly rough, and the poor corpses are being
pitched from side to side of the cabin. At midday I heard a cry on
deck, and judged that Kelly had dropped from the rigging in pure
exhaustion. The noise in the forecastle is awful. I think some of
the men there must be dead.

"Oct. 11th, 5 p.m.--The child is dying. There is a fearful storm
raging, and with this crew the vessel has no chance if we are
anywhere near land. God help--"

CHAPTER XI.

TELLS OF THE WRITING UPON THE GOLDEN CLASP; AND HOW I TOOK DOWN THE
GREAT KEY.

So ended my father's Journal--in a silence full of tragedy, a silence
filled in with the echo of that awful cry borne landwards on the
wings of the storm; and now, in the presence of this mute witness,
shaping itself into the single word "Murder." Of the effect of the
reading upon us, I need not speak at any length. For the most part
it had passed without comment; but the occasional choking of Uncle
Loveday's voice, my own quickening breath as the narrative continued,
and the tears that poured down the cheeks of both of us as we heard
the simple loving messages for Margery--messages so vainly tender, so
pitifully fond--were evidence enough of our emotion.

I say that we both wept, and it is true. But though, do what I
could, my young heart would swell and ache until the tears came at
times, yet for the most part I sat with cold and gathering hate.
It was mournful enough when I consider it. That the hand which
penned these anxious lines should be cold and stiff, the ear for
which they were so lovingly intended for ever deaf: that all the warm
hopes should end beside that bed where husband and wife lay dead--
surely this was tragic enough. But I did not think of this at the
time--or but dimly if at all. Hate, impotent hate, was consuming my
young heart as the story drew to its end; hate and no other feeling
possessed me as Uncle Loveday broke abruptly off, turned the page in
search of more, found none, and was silent.

Once he had stopped for a moment to call for a candle.
Mrs. Busvargus brought it, trimmed the wick, and again retired.
This was our only interruption. Joe Roscorla had n