ged that the
party should have the whole of the saloon accommodation as before; and
ere I left them that afternoon, Sir Edgar--asking me to roughly
calculate for him the probable date of our arrival--sat down and wrote
to his friend, apprising him of the determination arrived at, and naming
the approximate date at which the party might be looked for.

This arrangement was a most agreeable, as well as a most advantageous
one for me; for it at once insured me the disposal of all my saloon
accommodation for the passage, and, at the same time, the continued
society of those who had already not only proved themselves to be most
agreeable, companionable people, but whom I had by this time learned to
regard as staunch personal friends.

Nothing worthy of mention occurred to mark our sojourn in the Canton
river; I need, therefore, only state that, having duly discharged our
inward cargo, and received our outward freight, we sailed for Sydney on
the day three weeks following the date of the arrangement come to by Sir
Edgar and his party to take passage in the _Esmeralda_.

The passage proved as uneventful as the previous one had been the
reverse; only two incidents occurring during its progress of sufficient
moment to demand especial mention. At the time of their occurrence I
considered only one of them worth the distinction of an entry in my
diary; but subsequent events proved that they were both destined to
exercise almost equally important influences upon my fortunes and those
of my friends the Desmond party.

The first--and what seemed to me infinitely the most important--of these
was nothing less than my discovery of the long-sought key to Richard
Saint Leger's secret cipher; and it was brought about in a manner so
singular and unexpected that I must leave the explanation of the matter
to the psychological student, it being altogether beyond the
comprehension of such a simple, matter-of-fact, unlearned seaman as
myself.

It happened thus. I fully realised that it would be impossible for me
to continue cruising to and fro in those Eastern waters for an
indefinite period; I knew that a moment must sooner or later arrive when
the force of circumstances would compel me to shape a course once more
for England; and it already appeared to me highly probable that the
arrival of that moment would prove to be coincident with that of the
arrival of the ship in Sydney Harbour. I consequently became
increasingly anxious to disc