would have done the same for him under similar circumstances; and then he requested both to step down with him into his cabin.
When that was done, turning to the passenger he said: "Will you excuse the liberty I am taking with you, if I desire you to write a few words on the slate?"
"Certainly I will do so," said the passenger. "What shall I write?"
"Nothing more than this: Steer to the Nor’-West."
The passenger looked amazed and puzzled; however, he held out his hand for the slate. This the captain extended to him, with that side uppermost on which Bruce and the crew had written, and which writing he had effaced with a sponge. The man wrote the required words. The captain took back the slate, stepping aside whilst the passenger was not observing, turned the slate over, and presented it to him, with the side uppermost on which was the mysterious inscription.
Tendering the slate again to him, he said: "You are ready to swear, sir, that this is your handwriting?"
"Of course it is; you saw me write."
"Look at it attentively and make sure that it is the same."
"I have no doubt about it. I make my s in the midst of a sentence in the old-fashioned way, long. And there it is, attached to the t at steer and west."
"And this also?" asked the captain, turning the slate over.
The passenger looked first at one writing, then at the other, quite confounded. "I don't understand what this can mean," said he; "I wrote the words once only. Who wrote the other?"
"That, sir, is more than I can say. My mate in-
