“This Da Costa,” said Ralph, “evidently had the duty of conducting the convicts from Pernambuco to the island; and it was doubtless on one of these trips that he buried his money, though why he has let it remain so long puzzles me. And as for ‘Mas distante occidente,’ which you say was traced on the rock, the words were probably written as a guide to the location of the tree.” The convict island faded away in the distance, the great peak being visible for several hours after all other parts had vanished; and that evening, long after the damp night-wind had stiffened the sails, and a drenching dew lay heavy on the bulwarks, I stood watching the glorious phosphorescent display in the brig’s wake, and marvelling over the strange fulfillment of my dream. The inquiries which we instituted upon my return home resulted in the discovery that Leon Da Costa had died of yellow fever in 1890 at Santos, one of the chief ports of Brazil, and at the same time about the most pestilential and unsanitary place on the face of the earth. I had no further scruples about using the money, $5,000 of which I sent to Ralph, without whose assistance I should have accomplished nothing. He now owns two-thirds of the brig _Sea Witch_, of which vessel Seth Hawkins is still mate. Occupying a prominent place in our parlor is a peculiar motto—the work of Alice. The figures are white, on a background of black, like this: 3° 50′ 30″ S. 32° 24′ 30″ W. It never fails to attract the attention of visitors, many of whom inquire what it signifies. We tell them it is a marine puzzle. BRINGING IN A DERELICT. [Picture: Bringing in a Derelict] The West India hurricane of August, 1893, was one of unusual severity, and caused great havoc among shipping on the Atlantic seaboard from Florida to Maine. Besides the large number of vessels lost by going ashore, many were abandoned by their crews at sea after having sprung a leak or become water-logged. A large part of these craft subsequently foundered, but a number of them were vessels bound from Georgia ports to Boston and New York with cargoes of hard pine lumber, and in these cases the vessels, after becoming full of water, “floated on their cargoes;” that is to say, the buoyancy imparted to the wrecks by the lumber in their holds kept them from sinking as they ordinarily would have done. Some of these derelicts have been known to float for a year or two, round and round in a beaten track, forming a source of great peril to navigation; until, the lumber becoming thoroughly saturated with water, the wreck finally sinks. In some instances the abandoned vessel is torn to pieces by the violence of successive storms before this stage has been reached.