Galdeazun looked at the water-mark, and answered,—­

“A little more than a quarter of an hour.”

“Good,” said the doctor.

The low hood of the companion on which he leant his elbows made a sort of table; the doctor took from his pocket his inkhorn and pen, and his pocket-book out of which he drew a parchment, the same one on the back of which he had written, a few hours before, some twenty cramped and crooked lines.

“A light,” he said.

The snow, falling like the spray of a cataract, had extinguished the torches one after another; there was but one left.  Ave Maria took it out of the place where it had been stuck, and holding it in his hand, came and stood by the doctor’s side.

The doctor replaced his pocket-book in his pocket, put down the pen and inkhorn on the hood of the companion, unfolded the parchment, and said,—­

“Listen.”

Then in the midst of the sea, on the failing bridge (a sort of shuddering flooring of the tomb), the doctor began a solemn reading, to which all the shadows seemed to listen.  The doomed men bowed their heads around him.  The flaming of the torch intensified their pallor.  What the doctor read was written in English.  Now and then, when one of those woebegone looks seemed to ask an explanation, the doctor would stop, to repeat—­whether in French, or Spanish, Basque, or Italian—­the passage he had just read.  Stifled sobs and hollow beatings of the breast were heard.  The wreck was sinking more and more.

The reading over, the doctor placed the parchment flat on the companion, seized his pen, and on a clear margin which he had carefully left at the bottom of what he had written, he signed himself, GERNARDUS GEESTEMUNDE:  Doctor.

Then, turning towards the others, he said,—­

“Come, and sign.”

The Basque woman approached, took the pen, and signed herself, ASUNCION.

She handed the pen to the Irish woman, who, not knowing how to write, made a cross.

The doctor, by the side of this cross, wrote, BARBARA FERMOY, of Tyrrif
Island, in the Hebrides.

Then he handed the pen to the chief of the band.

The chief signed, GAIZDORRA:  Captal.

The Genoese signed himself under the chief’s name.  GIANGIRATE.

The Languedocian signed, JACQUES QUARTOURZE:  alias, the Narbonnais.

The Provencal signed, LUC-PIERRE CAPGAROUPE, of the Galleys of Mahon.

Under these signatures the doctor added a note:—­

“Of the crew of three men, the skipper having been washed overboard by a sea, but two remain, and they have signed.”

The two sailors affixed their names underneath the note.  The northern
Basque signed himself, GALDEAZUN.

The southern Basque signed, AVE MARIA:  Robber.

Then the doctor said,—­

“Capgaroupe.”

“Here,” said the Provencal.