“Send that certain person awaiting your news a myrtle leaf.”
“How? what did you say? Say it again,” cried out Pavel. “Myrtle! myrtle? then he is lost.…”
“He was saved on a fragment of the ship near the island of Teneriffe, and for some time remained with the poor monks of the coast.”
“And now? oh! speak, I implore you.”
“A year after he was killed by pirates, who pillaged the monastery where he was living.”
“How did you learn all this?”
“At that time I was myself living on the isle of Teneriffe,” he answered. “I was copying an old Latin manuscript, which was very precious to me, from the archives of the monastery.”
“But what does all this mean? Is he only a juggler, or an all-powerful seer?” thought Pavel, torn with doubts. “A clever diviner, or a bold charlatan, but from where?… All my most secret … coast of Africa … the name of the lost ship … and then that token, the fatal myrtle. Is it possible Ekaterina Ivanovna should have betrayed me? But he never saw her; she is ill, has never been once out of her room, received no visits, and has been nowhere.…”
Pavel wanted to say something else, but could find no words.
Beyond the schooner the dawn was breaking.