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 served. "As I see it, there's a bit o' sealin'-wax over the cork."

Garth scrambled hastily to the edge of the rock-pool and poked after the bottle with the end of a crutch, for it was a little beyond his reach. Joan pulled it in, and they held it up to the light.

"There's some'at in it, sir," she commented; "a paper, like enough."

"Like enough from a shipwrecked mariner!" Captain Crosstrees suggested gleefully. "Smash it open, Bobstay, quick!"

They broke the bottle against a rock and drew out a wad of paper. It was frayed and smoked at the edges, and much rumpled, but, even so, in marvellously good preservation, considering the date it bore. For, below a skull and cross-bones, the figures 1732 were boldly written, and scrawled beneath:

"H'm," mused Ben Bobstay, while the Captain forgot himself so far as to embrace his shipmate joyfully; "the Cardiff, is it? There's tales I could tell o' her."

A solemn shake of the head and a tantalizing pause taxed the patience of the other treasure-seeker.