routed scoundrels were coming
back. Satisfied on this point, he once more investigated the dead bodies
on the floor, to assure himself that all were as dead as they appeared.
Then he set himself to examine the precious paper, which held out to his
imagination all sorts of fascinating possibilities. He knew that the
swift boats carrying the proceeds of the pearl-fisheries were always
eagerly watched by the piratical junks infesting those waters, but
carried an armament which secured them from all interference. In case of
wreck, however, the pirates' opportunity would come. Jan knew that the
story he had just heard was no improbable one.

The map proved to be rough, but very intelligible. It indicated a
stretch of the eastern coast of Java, which Jan recognized; but the spot
where the junk had gone down was one to which passing ships always gave
a wide berth. It was a place of treacherous anchorage, of abrupt,
forbidding, uninhabited shore, and of violent currents that shifted
erratically. So much the better, thought Jan, for his investigations, if
only the pirate junk should prove to have been considerate enough to
sink in water not too deep for a diver to work in. There would be so
much the less danger of interruption.

Jan was on the point of hurrying away from the gruesome scene, which
might at any moment become a scene of excitement and annoying
investigation, when a new idea flashed into his mind. It was over this
precious paper that all the trouble had been. The scoundrels who had
fled would undoubtedly return as soon as they dared, and would search
for it. Finding it gone they would conclude that he had it; and they
would be hot on his trail. He had no fancy for the sleepless vigilance
that this would entail upon him. He had no fancy for the heavy armed
expedition which it would force him to organize for the pearl hunt. He
saw his airy palaces toppling ignominiously to earth. He saw that all he
was likely to get was a slit throat.

As he glanced about him for a way out of his dilemma his eyes fell on a
bottle of India ink containing the fine-tipped brush with which these
Orientals did their writing. His resourcefulness awoke to this chance.
The moments were becoming very pearls themselves for preciousness, but
seizing the brush, he made a workable copy of the map on the back of a
letter which he had in his pocket. Then he made a minute and very
careful correction in the original, in such a manner as to indicate