"You never know what purpose they may serve," she said. In after days a
weird significance was attached to this simple phrase.

"Why do you carry about a bit of tin?" she went on.

How the atmosphere of deception clung to him! Here was a man compelled
to lie outrageously who, in happier years, had prided himself on
scrupulous accuracy even in small things.

"Plague upon it!" he silently protested. "Subterfuge and deceit are as
much at home in this deserted island as in Mayfair."

"I found it here, Miss Deane," he answered.

Luckily she interpreted "here" as applying to the cave.

"Let me see it. May I?"

He handed it to her. She could make nothing of it, so together they
puzzled over it. The sailor rubbed it with a mixture of kerosene and
sand. Then figures and letters and a sort of diagram were revealed. At
last they became decipherable. By exercising patient ingenuity some one
had indented the metal with a sharp punch until the marks assumed this
aspect (see cut, following page).

Iris was quick-witted. "It is a plan of the island," she cried.

"Also the latitude and the longitude."

"What does 'J.S.' mean?"