be attributing too much subtlety of mind to Captain
Sampson--but that strange guiding instinct--to put it in its lowest
terms--which I know in my heart I must follow if I would succeed.
Shall I ever forget the feeling that stirred me when first I turned
the pages of my grandfather's diary and saw there, in his faded
writing, the story of the mate of the _Bonny Lass_, who died in
Havana in my grandfather's arms? My grandfather had gone as
supercargo in his own ship, and while he did a good stroke of
business in Havana--trust his shrewd Yankee instincts for that--he
managed to combine the service of God with that of Mammon. Many a
poor drunken sailor, taking his fling ashore in the bright,
treacherous, plague-ridden city, found in him a friend, as did the
mate of the _Bonny Lass_ in his dying hour. Oh, if my good
grandfather had but made sure from the man's own lips exactly where
the treasure lay! It is enough to make one fancy that the unknown
Bill, who paid for too much knowledge with his life, has his own
fashion of guarding the hoard. But I ramble. I was going to say,
that from the moment when I learned from my grandfather's diary of
the existence of the treasure, I have been driven by an impulse
more overmastering than anything I have ever experienced in my
life. It was, I believe, what old-fashioned pious folk would call
a _leading_. The impetus seemed somehow to come from outside my
own organism. All my life I had been irresolute, the sport of
circumstances, trifling with this and that, unable to set my face
steadfastly toward any goal. Yet never, since I have trodden this
path, have I looked to right or left. I have defied both human
opinion and the obstacles which an unfriendly fate has thrown in my
way. All alone, I, a sailor hitherto of pleasure-craft among the
bays and islands of the New England coast, put forth in my little
sloop for a voyage of three hundred miles on the loneliest wastes
of the Pacific. All alone, did I say? No, there was Benjy the
faithful. His head is at my knee as I write. He knows, I think,
that his master's mood is sad to-night. Oh, Helen, if you ever see
these lines, will you realize how I have longed for you--how it
sometimes seems that my soul must tear itself loose from my body
and speed to you across half a world?

February 1. Since my last record my time has been well filled. In
the _Island Queen_ I have been surveying the coasts of my domain,
sailing as close