contained therein.

The other books were not of great interest save perhaps to a bibliophile. They, however, showed that their owner was a scholar. The first, a thin manuscript on paper, and written in a neat Gothic hand, which I afterwards discovered was of the early fifteenth century, bore the title, “Trithemius, Liber de Triplici Regione.” The others were a well-written book of monastic law on vellum, with red and blue capitals of about the same date, and a kind of old pocket-book, in which was a treatise entitled “Loci Communes Theologici per Dominicas et Festes Totius Anni.”

It was the secret of old Bartholomew da Schorno—an Italian, evidently—that we were eager to discover, for both Seal and I felt confident that it would reveal to us the name of the dead owner of the Seahorse and the history of that remarkable resurrection.

Seahorse

In that heavy parchment book was a secret which old Bartholomew declared “one alone may discover to his advantage hereafter.”

What could it be?

Job Seal and I sat smoking our pipes and wondering what strange things were hidden within that yellow old volume that emitted so musty a smell.

Little, however, did we dream of the remarkable consequences that were to follow upon our startling discovery. It is, indeed, well sometimes that the Book of Fate is ever closed to us.

CHAPTER V WITH A STORY TO TELL

WITH A STORY TO TELL

WITH A STORY TO TELL

At daybreak next morning I was called up to the Mysterious Man, whom I found standing in a corner of the forecastle holding a loaded revolver in his hand and pointing it threateningly at anyone who approached him.

At

He had awoke, I was told, made a tour of the ship, and, gaining possession of the weapon belonging to the second engineer, proceeded to fire one chamber point-blank at Thorpe, who was on duty on the bridge. Then, when pursued, he took refuge in the forecastle, where I found him.

On my approach he calmed down immediately, and handed me 

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