So I went again to my cabin and counted over my treasures, finding to my satisfaction that none were missing.
I saw but little more of the man Harding. The skipper later on told me that he had given the fellow a good talking too, and that he had expressed his regret at his insolence. He had, however, only shipped for the voyage, and would be paid off that day, therefore it was useless to do more than remonstrate.
Nevertheless, the incident disturbed me. I had a strange, indescribable intuition that the man Harding had obtained possession of some secret hidden from me; that the apparently ignorant seaman was acquainted with the Latin script and with those puzzling abbreviations which had so utterly floored me. Before my eyes he had deciphered line after line, reading it off almost as easily as the copies of Lloyd’s and the Dispatch, that found so much favour in the forecastle. Yet why had he taken such precaution to destroy the memoranda he had written if the facts did not relate to some secret from which he expected to receive benefit?
Thus, while the Mysterious Man slept soundly in the room prepared for him, I sat for a long time over my pipe trying to decipher the uneven scribble and pondering over what might be written on that time-stained parchment.
Next day Seal came to see me, dressed in his shore-going toggery—a neat navy blue suit and a peaked cap a size too small for his ponderous head. The Mysterious Man so far demonstrated that his senses were returning that he expressed pleasure at meeting the skipper by holding out his hand to him, a fact which gave both of us satisfaction.
“I’m busy unloading now, you know, doctor,” the captain said, in his deep, cheery voice, “so I must leave it all to you. Act just as you think fit. For my own part I think we ought to get them parchments deciphered. They might tell us something interesting.”
“And the gold?”
“For the present we’ll stick to that,” was his prompt reply. “If anybody claims it we’ll investigate their claim, as the insurance people say, but as far as I can see the only person entitled to it is that lunatic over there,” and he jerked his thumb in the direction of the Mysterious Man.
He drank deeply of my whisky, and pronounced it good. We chatted for an hour or more, and when I asked about Harding he merely answered: —
“Oh, the fellow was paid off last night. I’m quite your way of thinking—there was some mystery about that chap. I’ve made inquiries and find that he hadn’t been many voyages before, because he betrayed ignorance of many common terms at sea, and gave himself away in lots of details.”