--

"Knowledge is a weight added to conscience."

He continued,--

"How much time have we still?"

Galdeazun looked at the water-mark, and answered,--

"A little more than a quarter of an hour."

"Good," said the doctor.

The low hood of the companion on which he leant his elbows made a sort
of table; the doctor took from his pocket his inkhorn and pen, and his
pocket-book out of which he drew a parchment, the same one on the back
of which he had written, a few hours before, some twenty cramped and
crooked lines.

"A light," he said.

The snow, falling like the spray of a cataract, had extinguished the
torches one after another; there was but one left. Ave Maria took it out
of the place where it had been stuck, and holding it in his hand, came
and stood by the doctor's side.

The doctor replaced his pocket-book in his pocket, put down the pen and
inkhorn on the hood of the companion, unfolded the parchment, and
said,--

"Listen."

Then in the midst of the sea, on the failing bridge (a sort of
shuddering flooring of the tomb), the doctor began a solemn reading, to
which all the shadows seemed to listen. The doomed men bowed their heads
around him. The flaming of the torch intensified their pallor. What the
doctor read was written in English. Now and then, when one of those
woebegone looks seemed to ask an explanation, the doctor would stop, to
repeat--whether in French, or Spanish, Basque, or Italian--the passage
he had just read. Stifled sobs and hollow beatings of the breast were
heard. The wreck was sinking more and more.

The reading over, the doctor placed the parchment flat on the companion,
seized his pen, and on a clear margin which he had carefully left at the
bottom of what he had written, he signed himself, GERNARDUS GEESTEMUNDE:
Doctor.

Then, turning towards the others, he said,--

"Come, and sign."

The Basque woman approached, took the pen, and signed herself, ASUNCION.

She handed the pen to the Irish woman, who, not knowing how to write,
made a cross.

The doctor, by the side of this cross, wrote, BARBARA FERMOY, _of Tyrrif
Island, in the Hebrides_.

Then he handed the pen to the chief of the band.

The chief signed, GAIZDORRA: _Captal_.

The Genoese signed himself under the chief's name. GIANGIRATE.

The Languedocian signed, JACQUES QUARTOURZE: _alias, the Narbonnais_.

The Provencal signed, LUC-PIERRE CAPGAROUPE, _of the Galleys of Mahon_.

Under these signatures the do