t him; while a
steamer, bound from the Cape to Cadiz, and known to have specie aboard
her, went out of knowledge as the others had done. Then was I sure,
sure of that awful dream I had dreamed, conscious that I alone shared
with that man and his crew one of the most ghastly secrets that the
deep has kept within her.

"The end of my story I judge now that you anticipate. Though absolutely
convinced myself, I had still lack of the one direct link to make a
legal chain. I had positively to connect the man Black with the
nameless ship, for this I had only done so far by pure circumstance.
For many months I have made no gain in this attempt. Last year in
Liverpool I sketched in yet another point in my picture. I received
tidings of the man in that city, and there I did trade with him in my
old disguise; but he was not alone--the crew of ruffians you have known
by this time kept company with him in that bold and bestial Bohemianism
you will have witnessed with me. I kept vigil there a week, but lost
him at the end of that time. When he reappeared in the circles of
civilisation it was in Paris, but two days ago, when I asked you to
accompany me. You know that I attempted to sail with him on his cruise,
and your instinct tells you why. If I could, by being two days afloat
in his company, prove beyond doubt that he used his yacht as a
pretence; if I could prove that when he left port in her he sailed out
to sea, and was picked up by the nameless ship, my chain was forged, my
book complete, and I had but to call the Government to the work!

"But I have failed, and the labour I have set myself shall be done by
others, but chiefly, Mark Strong, by you. From the valley of the dead
whence soon I must look back, if it is to be on a life that has no
achievement before God in it, I, who have laid down such a life as mine
was in this cause, urge you upon it. You have youth, and money
sufficient for the enterprise; you will get money in its pursuit. You
have no fear of the black After, which is the end of life; but, after
all, it may come to you as it came to me, that there is the finger of
the Almighty God pointing to your path of duty. I have lived the life
of a common eavesdropper; but believe me that in this work I have felt
the call of humanity, and hoped, if I might live to accomplish it, that
the Book of the Good should find some place for my name. So may you
when my mantle falls upon you. What information I have, you have. The
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