the yard crashing through her bottom.
She now drifted clear; and, our mainyard being at the same time filled
and the helm put hard up, we paid off and began to draw away from her,
noting, meanwhile, that she was gradually filling with water. The
sharks still stuck pertinaciously to her; and as she settled lower in
the water it was horrible to see with what increasing eagerness and
determination they crowded round and strove to overturn her. At length,
when her gunwale was almost flush with the water's edge, they apparently
succeeded; for we saw her mast begin to rock and sway, and then, while
the blue of the water all about her with the surge of their struggling
bodies was frothed into creamy white and spurting spray by their fierce
plunges, the spar heeled suddenly over and disappeared. Happily we were
by this time too far away to note the details in this final scene of the
ghastly drama; but, taking a last look through the telescope, a few
minutes later, I was able to make out the hull of the boat floating
bottom up. The swarm of sharks had vanished.

On the fifth day following, we arrived, without further incident, in the
Canton river; and Sir Edgar and his party went ashore and took up their
quarters in the best hotel in Hong Kong, while we went to work with all
expedition to discharge our cargo.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

THE SOLUTION OF THE CRYPTOGRAM.

I was at this time no nearer to the unriddling of Richard Saint Leger's
cryptogram than I had been at the moment when I held it in my hand for
the first time; but now that I was so far on my way toward the spot
where the treasure was supposed to still lie hidden, I resolved that I
would not return until I had succeeded in deciphering the document and
testing the truth of whatever statement it might be found to contain. I
had a shrewd suspicion that the hiding-place of the treasure would prove
to be in one of the thousand islets of the vast Pacific; and I
accordingly determined to confine my operations to those waters until I
had some good reason for going elsewhere. Our hatches were consequently
no sooner off than I set about inquiring for freights to one or another
of the Pacific ports. I speedily discovered that the most advantageous
freights offering were for Australia; and, it having leaked out that the
little _Esmeralda_ was something of a clipper, I succeeded, ere we had
been in the river a week, in obtaining an excellent freight for Sydney,
with the pr