One day in July, a very warm day, we had been fishing and caught but little, so were having an hour’s chat and smoke as our boat rocked lazily on the clear blue water, when somehow the conversation turned on curious discoveries and accidental finds.  Suddenly the thought of my valuable discovery of the lace entered my head.  Should I tell Alec?  No!  I would keep my secret; but what of the paper I had discovered in the niche in the wall?  Could not Alec decipher that for me?  Should I tell him of that?  Why not?  By keeping the paper to myself I should not know if it were of value or no, so revolving the matter in my mind as to how I should broach the subject, I at last made up my mind to consult him upon the subject, but said nothing of it just then.  We set to work again, after a rest, and fished, but fortune that day was not kind to us, or the fish were as lazy as ourselves; anyhow, we caught very few; in fact, not more than we could consume in a fresh state.  When we obtained plenty we gutted them, split them, took off their heads, and dried them in the sun for future use, just as the natives of the Pacific Islands do theirs.

That evening, when supper was finished, I told Alec I had something to shew him, which did not belong to me, but which might or might not be of value to me as the holder.

Somehow I had, by associating the old leathern cup and the lace together, brought myself to believe that the paper was like the lace, of some value.  Therefore it behoved me to be careful as to how I broached the subject to Alec.

I quietly took it from my trunk, and handed it to him carelessly, with the remark,

“Can you read that for me, Alec?”

He had a good look at it, holding it very close to the lamp, and read it quite through to himself, while I sat impatiently waiting for him to say something about it.  Not wishing to appear anxious I pretended to read, but although I looked at the page it might just as well have been a brick I was looking at as a book for all the information I got from it.

At length he laid the paper down, and informed me that he could read it well enough, but what did it all refer to?

“It is a list of articles followed by some curious signs that I cannot make out,” said he.  “Then it goes on to say that anyone finding the things mentioned, may have them as a gift for his trouble in searching for them.  Then follows the date, Nov. 13, 17—.  So probably your musty old paper is at least one hundred years old.”

Then he laid the document on the table, relit his pipe, and went on cutting out a netting needle for to-morrow’s use.  I merely remarked it was an old paper I had had by me a long time, and as I wanted to know what it was about had kept it.  With that I put it away in the trunk, and changed the subject by turning my attention to snooding a score or two of fish hooks for conger fishing.

Next day when I saw an opportunity I got away to a quiet spot, and puzzled myself with the hieroglyphic-looking portion of the paper which appeared thus:—­