ing
over two hundred yards.

"Here," thought I, glancing up the glade towards the westering sun,
"is the very spot for our clump of, trees;" and so it was--only no
clump of trees happened to be in sight. The glade, however,
stretched away and around a bend of the stream, and I was moving to
the bank to explore it to its end when my eyes were arrested by
something white not ten paces away. It was a piece of paper caught
against one of the large boulders between which, as through a broken
dam, the water poured into the ravine. I waded towards it and
stooped, steadying myself against the current.

It was a paper boat.

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE WOMEN IN THE GRAVEYARD.

I turned it over in my hand. Yes; it was a boat such as children
make out of paper, many times folded, and "What on earth," thought I,
"put such childishness into the head of Captain Branscome or Mr. Jack
Rogers?"

Then it occurred to me that they might be caught in some peril higher
up the stream, and had launched this message on the chance of its
being carried down to the waters of the creek. A far-fetched
explanation, to be sure! But what was I to think? If it were the
explanation, doubtless the paper contained writing, and, carrying it
to the bank, I seated myself and began to unfold it very carefully;
for it was sodden, and threatened to fall to pieces in my hands.
Then I reflected that the two men carried no writing materials, or,
at the best, a lead pencil, the marks of which would be obliterated
before the paper had been two minutes in the water.

Yet, as I parted the folds, I saw that the paper had indeed been
scribbled on, though the words were a smear; and, moreover, that the
writing was in ink!

In ink! My fingers trembled and involuntarily tore a small rent in
the pulpy mass. I laid it on the grass to dry in the full sunshine,
seated myself beside it, and looked around me with a shiver.

A paper boat--the paper written on--and the writing in ink! I could
be sworn that neither Captain Branscome nor Mr. Rogers carried an
inkbottle. The paper, too, was of a kind unfamiliar to me; thin,
foreign paper, ruled with faint lines in watermark. Certainly no one
on board the _Espriella_ owned such writing-paper or the like of it.
But again, the paper could not have been long in the water, and the
writing seemed to be fresh. As the torn edges crinkled in the heat
and curled themselves half-open, I peered between them and
distinguish