best of luck to your future researches.'

"He was gone. I could hear him singing as he went a strange song
which he had often sung on the outward voyage--

"'Sing hey! for the dead man's lips, my lads;
Sing ho! for the dead man's soul.
At his red, red lips. . . .'

"The song died away in the distance before I moved. I had hardly
opened my lips during the interview, and now had much ado to believe
it a reality. But the newly-turfed grave was voucher enough for
this. A horror of the place seized me; I cast one shuddering look at
the giant face and rushed from the spot, leaving the silent creepers
to veil once more that awful likeness from the eyes of day.

"As I emerged upon the track again I came upon Peter and Paul, who
were seeking me high and low, with dismay written upon their faces.
Excusing my absence as best I could, I declared myself ready, in
spite of my ankle, to make all haste in the descent. Of our journey
down the Peak I need say little, except that, lame as I was, I
surprised and exhausted my guides in my hurry. Of the dangers and
difficulties which had embarrassed our ascent I seemed to feel
nothing. Except in the cool of the forest, the heat was almost
insufferable; but I would hear of no delay until we reached
Ratnapoora. Here, instead of returning as we had come, we took a
boat down the Kalu-ganga river to Cattura, and thence travelled along
the coast by Pantura to Colombo.

"The object of my journey is now accomplished: and it only remains to
hasten home with all speed. But I am feeling strangely unwell as I
write this. My head has never fully recovered that blow at Bombay,
and I think the hours during which I remained exposed to the sun's
rays, by the side of that awful image, must have affected it.
Or perhaps the fatigue of the journey has worn me out. If I am going
to sicken I must hide my secret. It would be safer to bury it with
the Journal, at any rate for the time, somewhere in the garden here.
I have a tin box that will just answer the purpose. My head is
giving me agony. I can write no more."

CHAPTER X.

CONTAINS THE THIRD AND LAST PART OF MY FATHER'S JOURNAL: SETTING
FORTH THE MUTINY ON BOARD THE _BELLE FORTUNE_.

"June 19th.--Strange that wherever I am hospitably entertained I
recompense my host by falling ill in his house. Since my last entry
in this Journal I have been lying at the gate of death, smitten down
with a sore sickness. It seems