After a little, I put the questions to him
which I had been longing to ask, from the time
when I first saw his face on the pillow. Had
they all given me up at home, for dead (I
asked)? Yes; after long, long hoping, one by
one they had given me up—my wife (God bless
her!) last of all. I meant to ask next if my wife
was alive and well; but, try as I might, I could
only say "Margaret?"—and look hard in my
brother's face. He knew what I meant. Yes
(he said), she was living; she was at home;
she was in her widow's weeds—poor soul! her
widow's weeds! I got on better with my next
question about the child. Was it born alive?
Yes. Boy or girl? Girl. And living now; and
much grown? Living, surely, and grown—
poor little thing, what a question to ask!—
grown of course, in three years! And mother?
Well, mother was a trifle fallen away, and more
silent within herself than she used to be—
fretting at times; fretting (like my wife) on
nights when the sea rose, and the windows shook
and shivered in the wind. Thereupon, my brother
and I waited a bit again—I with my questions,
and he with his answers and while we waited,
I thanked God, inwardly, with all my heart and
soul, for bringing me back, living, to wife and
kindred, while wife and kindred were living too.

My brother dried the tears off his face; and
looked at me a little. Then he turned aside
suddenly, as if he remembered something; and stole
his hand in a hurry, under the pillow of his bed.
Nothing came out from below the pillow but his
black neck-handkerchief, which he now unfolded
slowly, looking at me, all the while, with something
strange in his face that I couldn't make out.

"What are you doing?" I asked him. "What
are you looking at me like that for?"

Instead of making answer, he took a crumpled
morsel of paper out of his neck-handkerchief,
opened it carefully, and held it to the light to
let me see what it was. Lord in Heaven!—my
own writing—the morsel of paper I had
committed, long, long since, to the mercy of the deep.
Thousands and thousands of miles away, I had
trusted that Message to the waters—and here it
was now, in my brother's hands! A chilly fear
came over me at the seeing it again. Scrap of
paper as it was, it looked to my eyes like the
ghost of my own past self, gone home before me
invisibly over the great wastes of the sea.

My brother pointed down solemnly to the
writing.

"Hugh," he said, "were you in your right
mind when you wrote those words?"

"Tell me, first," I made answer, "how and
when the Message came to you. I can't quiet
myself fit to talk till I know that."

He told me how the paper had come to hand
—also, how his good friend, the captain, having
promised to help him, was then under the same
roof with our two selves. But there he stopped.
It was not till later in the day that I heard of
what had happened (through this dreadful doubt
about the money) in the matter of his sweetheart
and his marriage.

The knowledge that the Message had reached
him by mortal means—on the word of a seaman,
I half doubted it when I first set eyes on the
paper!—eased me in my mind; and I now did
my best to quiet Alfred, in my turn. I told him
that I was in my right senses, though sorely
troubled, when my hand had written those words.
Also, that where the writing was rubbed out, I
could tell him for his necessary guidance and
mine, what once stood in the empty places.
Also, that I knew no more what the real truth
might be than he did, till inquiry was made, and
the slander on father's good name was dragged
boldly into daylight to show itself for what it
was worth. Lastly, that all the voyage home,
there was one hope and one determination
uppermost in my mind—the hope, that I might get
safe to England, and find my wife and kindred
alive to take me back among them again—the
determination, that I would put the doubt
about father's five hundred pound to the proof,
if ever my feet touched English land once more.

"Come out with me now, Alfred," I said,
after winding up as above; "and let me tell
you in the quiet of the morning how that Message
came to be written and committed to the
sea."

We went down stairs softly, and let ourselves
out without disturbing any one. The sun was
just rising when we left the village and took
our way slowly over the cliffs. As soon as the
sea began to open on us, I returned to that true
story of mine which I had left but half told,
the night before—and, this time, I went through
with it to the end.

I shipped, as you may remember (were my
first words to Alfred), in a second mate's berth,
on board the Peruvian, nine hundred tons'
burden. We carried an assorted cargo, and we
were bound, round the Horn, to Truxillo and
Guayaquil, on the western coast of South
America. From this last port—namely, Guayaquil
—we were to go back to Truxillo, and there to
take in another cargo for the return voyage.
Those were all the instructions communicated
to me when I signed articles with the owners,
in London city, three years ago.

After we had been, I think, a week at sea, I
heard from the first mate—who had himself
heard it from the captain—that the supercargo
we were taking with us, on the outward voyage,
was to be left at Truxillo, and that another
supercargo (also connected with our firm, and
latterly employed by them as their foreign
agent) was to ship with us at that port, for the
voyage home. His name on the captain's
instructions was, Mr. Lawrence Clissold. None
of us had ever set eyes on him to our knowledge,
and none of us knew more about him than
what I have told you here.

We had a wonderful voyage out—especially
round the Horn. I never before saw such fair
weather in that infernal latitude, and I never
expect to see the like again. We followed our
instructions to the letter; discharging our cargo
in fine condition, and returning to Truxillo to
load again as directed. At this place, I was so