"And how do you know?"
"By that everlasting document."
A GEOGRAPHER'S REMINISCENCES.
"Ah!" said the major, in a tone of the most thorough incredulity.
"Listen first, MacNabb, and shrug your shoulders afterwards. I did not speak before, because you would not have believed me. Besides, it was useless. But if I speak to-day, it is because Ayrton's opinion corroborates mine."
"Then New Zealand——?" asked Glenarvan.
"Hear and judge," replied Paganel. "I did not commit the blunder that saved us, without reason. Just as I was writing that letter at Glenarvan's dictation, the word Zealand was troubling my brain. You remember that we were in the cart. MacNabb had just told Lady Helena the story of the convicts, and had handed her the copy of the Australian and New Zealand Gazette that gave an account of the accident at Camden Bridge. As I was writing, the paper lay on the ground, folded so that only two syllables of its title could be seen, and these were aland. What a light broke in upon my mind! 'Aland' was one of the very words in the English document,—a word that we had hitherto translated ashore, but which was the termination of the proper name Zealand."
"Ha!" cried Glenarvan.
"Yes," continued Paganel, with profound conviction, "this interpretation had escaped me, and do you know why? Because my examinations were naturally confined more particularly to the French document, where this important word was wanting."