o--and I've got a daughter a
schoolma'am in Boston, and they've both been begging me to come home; but
somehow I hated to go back since my wife died.

"Mr. Trenholm, I don't want to bother you with all this now; but it's no
decent end for me, I say. All the men scattered over the globe to-day,
some that went as boys with me, will have to hear old man Riggs turned
pirate at the last and scuttled his own ship. That's how it will go, boy,
and you can't understand. Fight! I'd walk into hell in my bare feet, with
never a thought of the way back, if I could die with an honest name--but
this ain't no way for me to go, along with a passel o' gold!"

"Then, if you are concerned about what will be said of the mystery of the
loss of the _Kut Sang_, there must be a way to let the world know of our
end and the fate that overtook the ship, and at the same time a chance of
making trouble for our Mr. Thirkle after we are gone."

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Some message," I said, more to find something to interest him and
brighten him. "The story of the _Kut Sang_ and the Rev. Luther Meeker,
Thirkle, the Devil's Admiral, or whatever he is called, should be told;
and, as it is my business to deal in information, I can write it all
down, and we will seal it in this bottle and set it adrift. How's that,
captain?"

"A good scheme," he said, smiling at me. "The very thing, Mr. Trenholm. I
have some papers and envelopes here in my jacket, and a stub of
pencil for the log-book, and while you are at your writing I'll fashion a
stopper for the bottle and a buoy."

We poured out the last of the water in a pannikin and kept it for Rajah,
and I ripped open a couple of envelopes and set to work on them with a
stub of pencil, while Captain Riggs took my knife and began to whittle a
piece of board.

I put down briefly but clearly the story of how the Rev. Luther Meeker,
and Buckrow, Long Jim, and Petrak came aboard the _Kut Sang_, giving
their descriptions as well as I could remember. Then I told of the
killing of Trego, and all that had happened aboard the steamer, and about
the gold and the plight we were in, "skeletonizing" the narrative, much
as if it were to be filed as a news-cable.

Then I put down the names and addresses of my relatives, and those of
Captain Riggs. It was a queer job, writing one's own obituary in the
forecastle of the old _Kut Sang_, putting down the names of streets in
Boston and Bangor and San Francisco, and ma