A blank page was seen, if the word blank can be applied to a thing so mouldy, and in the middle of the page three words were written, two Latin words, Jussu regis, and a signature, Jeffreys.

“Jussu regis, Jeffreys,” said the sheriff, passing from a grave voice to a clear one.

Gwynplaine was as a man on whose head a tile falls from the palace of dreams.

He began to speak, like one who speaks unconsciously.

“Gernardus, yes, the doctor.  An old, sad-looking man.  I was afraid of him.  Gaizdorra, Captain, that means chief.  There were women, Asuncion, and the other.  And then the Provencal.  His name was Capgaroupe.  He used to drink out of a flat bottle on which there was a name written in red.”

“Behold it,” said the sheriff.

He placed on the table something which the secretary had just taken out of the bag.  It was a gourd, with handles like ears, covered with wicker.  This bottle had evidently seen service, and had sojourned in the water.  Shells and seaweed adhered to it.  It was encrusted and damascened over with the rust of ocean.  There was a ring of tar round its neck, showing that it had been hermetically sealed.  Now it was unsealed and open.  They had, however, replaced in the flask a sort of bung made of tarred oakum, which had been used to cork it.

“It was in this bottle,” said the sheriff, “that the men about to perish placed the declaration which I have just read.  This message addressed to justice has been faithfully delivered by the sea.”

The sheriff increased the majesty of his tones, and continued,—­

“In the same way that Harrow Hill produces excellent wheat, which is turned into fine flour for the royal table, so the sea renders every service in its power to England, and when a nobleman is lost finds and restores him.”

Then he resumed,—­

“On this flask, as you say, there is a name written in red.”

He raised his voice, turning to the motionless prisoner,—­

“Your name, malefactor, is here.  Such are the hidden channels by which truth, swallowed up in the gulf of human actions, floats to the surface.”

The sheriff took the gourd, and turned to the light one of its sides, which had, no doubt, been cleaned for the ends of justice.  Between the interstices of wicker was a narrow line of red reed, blackened here and there by the action of water and of time.

The reed, notwithstanding some breakages, traced distinctly in the wicker-work these twelve letters—­Hardquanonne.

Then the sheriff, resuming that monotonous tone of voice which resembles nothing else, and which may be termed a judicial accent, turned towards the sufferer.