"Seeing that I was terribly in earnest, the men rigged me out in some dry clothes, and left me with the intention of borrowing a pony and cart from a neighbouring house; but directly they had gone, a sudden impulse seized me--possibly I was temporarily out of my mind--and I staggered out of the cottage, without reckoning on the long walk home in my tottering condition; but fortunately for me, I had not gone many yards before I saw you and Reggie on ahead, and the rest you know." "You always were a hare-brained rascal in some respects," remarked my father; "and there was a great possibility of your pegging out through sheer exhaustion, in which case there would have been no survivors from the ill-fated 'Andrea Doria.'" "Then I suppose I am the only survivor?" asked my uncle. "I have every reason to believe so," replied my father sadly. "I think not--at least, I believe I'm right," I exclaimed. "But I didn't like to interrupt Uncle Herbert at the time." And thereupon I told him about my meeting with the foreign-looking sailor on the cliff. "Yes, I remember you mentioned the circumstance to me," remarked my father. "But why do you suppose the man was a member of the crew of the 'Andrea Doria'? Foreign sailors are not unusual in Fowey." "But foreigners in saturated clothes do not generally lie concealed in long grass early in the morning." "What was he like?" asked Uncle Herbert anxiously. "That's the man to a certainty," declared my uncle decisively, when I had completed the description. "Paulo, they called him. He was one of the two Brazilians we had aboard, and he it was who tried to stab me with a knife." "Why?" "That's where you have me. I cannot even guess--unless he was after the cipher." "Then possibly it was he who stole the papers from your cabin?" "More than likely. Mark my words, Howard, there is some villainy afoot. Don't you think it would be advisable to set the police on his track?" "Pooh!" exclaimed my father contemptuously. "We'll hear or see no more of him. Even now he may be working his passage homewards. However, that reminds me: I'll go over to Pridmouth to-morrow and return those well-fitting clothes you were rigged out in, and, at the same time, I'll get hold of the cipher; for, really, I am burning with impatience to tackle the mystery." Chapter IV THE CIPHER