228 FOR THE FLAG

to its execution. A bottle will run the risk of being
broken either in going through the tunnel or in striking
against the reefs outside before it reaches the open sea.
But if instead of a bottle a barrel hermetically sealed were
used, a small cask like those which float the fishing nets,
it would not be exposed to the same chances of breaking,
and might reach the ocean,

September 20th.—To-night, unseen, I went into one of
the storehouses, and readily found a little keg very
suitable for my purpose.

I hid it under my cloak, and returned to the Beehive,
where I lost no time in setting to work in my cell.

Paper, ink, and pens—I want for nothing. Have I not
for three months daily taken the notes from which I furnish
this narrative ?

I wrote on a sheet of paper the following lines :—

« After a double abduction, effected on the 15th of June,
Thomas Roch and his keeper, Gaydon, or rather the
French engineer, Simon Hart, who occupied Pavilion 17
at Healthful House, near Newburn, North Carolina, in the
United States of America, were, on the 19th of the same
month, conducted on board the £éa, a schooner belonging
to Count d’Artigas. Both are now shut up in the interior
of acavern that serves as hiding-place for the aforesaid
Count d’Artigas, whose real name is Ker Karraje, the
pirate, formerly notorious on the West Pacific, and about
a hundred men forming the gang of that formidable
outlaw.