of Ruth Bellenden's writing that ever I called my own,
and precious to me beyond any book.

"Yes," I went on, "this is the story of Ken's Island, and Ruth
Bellenden wrote it. Ten months almost from this day she landed here.
What has passed between Edmond Czerny and her in that time God alone
knows! She isn't one to make complaint, be sure of it. She has suffered
much, as a good woman always must suffer when she is linked to a bad
man. If these papers do not say so plainly, they say it by implication.
And, concerning that, I'll ask you a question. What is Edmond Czerny
here for? The answer's in a word. He is here for the money he gets out
of the wreckage of ships!"

It was no great surprise to them, I venture, though surprise I meant it
to be. They had guessed something the night we came ashore, and seamen
aren't as stupid as some take them for. Nevertheless, they picked up
their ears at my words, and Peter Bligh, filling his pipe, slowly,
said, after a bit:

"Yes, it wouldn't be for parlour games, captain!"

The others were too curious to put in their word, and so I went on:

"He's here for wreckage and the money it brings him. I'll leave it to
you to say what's done to those that sailed the ships. There are words
in this paper which make a man's blood run cold. If they are to be
repeated, they shall be spoken where Edmond Czerny can hear them,
and those that judge him. What we are concerned about at this moment
is Ken's Island and its story. You've heard the old Frenchman,
Clair-de-Lune, speak of sleep-time and sun-time. As God is in heaven,
he spoke the truth!"

They none of them answered me. Down below us the sea shimmered in the
morning light. We sat on a ledge a thousand feet above it, and, save
for the lapping waves on the reef, not a sound of life, not even a bird
on the wing, came nigh us. You could have heard a pin drop when I went
on.

"Sleep-time and sun-time, is it fable or truth? Ruth Bellenden says its
truth. I'll read you her words----"

Peter Bligh said, "Ah," and struck a match. Seth Barker, the carpenter,
sat for all the world like a child, with his great mouth wide open and
his eyes full of wonder. Dolly Venn was curled up at my feet like a
dog. I opened the papers and began to read to them:

"On the 14th of August, three weeks after the ship brought us to Ken's
Island, I was awakened at four o'clock in the morning by an alarm-bell
ringing somewhere in the island. The old servant, she whom