f coffee for Lothian and me; and we had not
been seated long before Peter Brown inquired of me the particulars
of my solitary voyage in the Falcon. At first very few of the men
paid much attention to my narrative, but when I came to the
discovery of the ship that had been imprisoned in the ice, and told
about the man I saw through the porthole, they all drew their
chairs nearer to me and listened with rapt attention. When I spoke
about the dead captain's wife, and said that her features were
still lifelike, there was a murmur of incredulity; none of the men
would believe that I was not romancing. But the young lieutenant
here interposed.

"Let the lad go on with his yarn," he said. "Believe me it's quite
possible that the woman's face should show no signs of death. I
have known frost and ice preserve a dead body for many months."

With that they were quieted. But again, when I spoke of the log
book and said that the ship had been enclosed in the ice for
thirteen years, even the lieutenant seemed to disbelieve me.

"Thirteen years!" he exclaimed. "Come now, come, draw it mild, my
lad, that won't do at all, you've mistaken the writing somehow.
Show us the log book and then we'll believe it."

"I'm sure I did not mistake, sir," I protested, "for the writing
was as plain as plain could be,

"'New Year's Day, 1831. The ice still closing in on us. Opened last
bag of biscuits. Murray died this morning.'

"These were the very words, and I'll show you them if--"

Here I felt a trembling hand clasped on my knee, and Peter asked
excitedly, "What name did you say? Was it Murray?"

"Murray! yes, that was the man who died on New Year's Day."

"Good heavens!" exclaimed Peter. "Tell me, what was the name of the
ship? Did you not find that out?"

"Why, yes, Peter, I saw her name. She was called the Pilgrim--of
Bristol."

Peter became excited, and a strange pallor came over his face.

"Why, what's come ower you, Peter?" asked Captain Flett. "D'ye know
the craft?"

"Know her!" said Peter; "I should think I did. She was my own ship.
I sailed in the Pilgrim as second mate for three years, and I
started with her on that same last voyage."

It was now my turn to show surprise.

"Your ship, Peter!" I said.

"Yes," he continued. "We sailed out of Bristol in the month of
February, 1830, bound for Copenhagen, calling at Iceland. But off
the Lewis--or was it Cape Wrath?--I had some o' my bones broken,
and they put me ashore a