statement of
their plans, concocted for the express purpose of throwing us off our
guard and leading us astray? Taking into account the deep guile that
had prompted them to adopt and consistently maintain a course of the
most orderly and irreproachable behaviour as the most likely means of
blinding me to and averting the faintest suspicion of their nefarious
designs, I could not help feeling that such a line of action on their
part was only too probable; and, in casting about in my mind for some
effectual method of subverting their plans, I fully realised that I
should have to take this contingency into consideration, while preparing
also a counterplot to that revealed by the man Rogers to Joe. Of one
thing, and one thing only, could I be certain, which was that _nobody_--
not even myself--knew the amount of the treasure; and it appeared to me
that upon this fact must I base my plans. These reflections, given
above in a very condensed form, fully occupied my mind during the first
hour and a half of my watch, and were only interrupted by the appearance
in the eastern quarter of that first faint paling of the darkness which
heralded the dawn of a new day. This temporarily diverted my thoughts
into a new channel; for, upon solving the enigma of the cryptogram, my
first act had been to consult a chart of the Pacific, with the resulting
discovery that no such island as that referred to in the Saint Leger
document was to be found upon it. Now, the ship's position on the
previous noon, and her run since then, were such that if the morning
happened to break clear, the island ought to be just visible, right
ahead, at daybreak, provided, of course, that the man who secreted the
treasure had made no mistake in his calculations. On the one hand, I
thought it probable that, considering the important issues at stake, the
utmost care would be taken to verify the position of the island beyond
all possibility of error; while, on the other, was the curious fact that
no such island--not even a rock, or indeed shoal water--appeared on the
chart in the position indicated. This circumstance, coupled with my
knowledge of the imperfect character of the instruments in use by
navigators of the period at which the cryptogram had been written,
caused me now to experience no little curiosity and anxiety as to what
the approaching daylight might reveal.

I was not to be left long in suspense. We were in the tropics, where
the light comes an