By this time there may be naught left of you but a whitening huddle of bones, surf bleached on the end of Wecanicut,—­for I know well what meager fare are eiligugs’ eggs and barnacles.  However, I take the chance of finding at least one of you alive, and address you fraternally as a companion in distress.

  I am myself stranded on a cheerless island where, against my
  will, I am kept captive—­for how long a time I cannot guess. 
  I was brought here at night, only forty-eight hours ago, and
  landed from a vessel which almost immediately departed whence
  it had come, into the darkness.  My captors left me to go with
  the vessel, the chief of them threatening to return every week
  to torment me unless I obeyed his slightest command.  I stand in
   great fear of this man, who is tall and bearded, for he brings
   with him instruments of torture and bottles containing, without
   doubt, poison.

Can you imagine my joy when, tottering down the beach this morning, supporting my frame upon two sticks, I beheld your bottle cast up on the sands?  Now, thought I, I can unburden myself to these three unfortunate men, obviously in even greater distress than my own, and we can, perhaps, ease each other’s monotonous maroonity.  Scholars, too, I perceive you to be,—­witness the Latin following your signatures.  Ah well, Grata superveniet quae non sperabitur hora, as the poet so truly says, and I cannot express to you how eager, how happy I am, in the thought of communicating with some one other than the natives of this desolate isle.  These inhabitants, though friendly on the whole, are uncouth and barbaric.  They spend their entire time fishing from boats which they build themselves, or squatting beside their huts mending their fishing implements.

The good soul with whom I am lodging is calling me to my scanty repast.  In the rude language of the place she tells me that there is “Krabss al ad an dunny.”  How can I live long, I ask, on such fare?

  Hopefully, your

  CASTAWAY COMRADE.

P.S.  My address—­mail reaches me from time to time, by aforesaid vessel—­is P.O.  Box 14, Blue Harbor, Me.  ME stands for Mid Equator, but the abbreviation is sufficient.  Blue Harbor is my own literal translation of the native Bluar Boor.  Box 14 refers to the native system of delivering messages.  P.O. has, I think, something to do with the P. & O. steamers, which, however, do not very often touch here.

“I told you it would go around the world!” Greg said, when I had finished, and Jerry and I were staring at each other.

“Well!” Jerry said at last. “What luck!”

“I should rather say so,” I said; “suppose a fisherman had found it, or no one at all.”

“Bless his old heart,” said Jerry, taking the letter.

I wanted to know why “old.”