I was almost beginning to lose heart, when I knelt by chance, not on the stone, but on a short board at the side, which ran at right angles with the general planks, and seemed intended as part of a kind of framework to the stone. This board creaked under my weight; and when I looked more closely at it, I discovered a couple of sunk hinges let deep into the plank adjoining, and covered over with dust and rust. With my sailor's knife I cleared away at the edges, and after several trials, one of which broke my blade, I managed to raise it and swing it back on its hinges. The slight cavity below was full of dirt and rubbish, and it was not till I had cleared these away that I found it ran partly under the adjoining flagstone. The hole was too small to look into, but I could get in my hand, and after some groping came upon what I wanted. It was a small leather packet, carefully folded and tied round, not much larger than an envelope, and fastened on either side with a wafer. Slipped under the outer string was a smaller folded paper, on the cover of which I recognised, to my great amazement, my own name. I thrust both packet and paper into my pocket, and after satisfying myself that the hole contained nothing more, filled it up again, and restored the hinged board to its old position. Then I extinguished and replaced the candle, and a few minutes later was hurrying, with my precious freight, down the rocky corridor towards the cave where I had left my boat. I was not long in getting into the outer world once more. My boat I left where it was, and scrambled up the rocks to the place from which I had once watched the _Arrow_ as she lay at anchor. Here I flung myself on the turf and waited impatiently for daylight. It came at last, and at its first glow I took the packet from my pocket. The small outer paper addressed to me was in Tim's hand, and was very brief. "Dear Barry," it said, "I searched as I promised, and have read this letter. Time enough when Ireland's business is done to attend to yours and mine.--Tim." From this I turned with trembling curiosity to the packet itself, and took from it a faded paper, written in a strange, uncultured hand, but signed at the end with my mother's feeble signature, and dated a month after Tim's and my birth. This is the strange matter it contained:--