I went into the chart room.  A couple of charts were spread out on a couch.  One of them was a chart of the north of Scotland, including the Orkney and Shetland Islands; the second was a continuation of the first, and gave the whole coast of Iceland and the sea beyond as high as the seventy-seventh degree of north latitude.  The ship’s course was clearly traced upon the charts in lines of red ink, and, following it, I could see that the Pilgrim (sailing, I suppose, from Bristol or some other English port) had rounded Cape Wrath and gone in at Kirkwall, in the Orkneys; thence the course was continued in a regular zigzag northward to a port on the north of Iceland, and then due east, as though she had been making for Scandinavia.  But here the line became broken and irregular, and swept round suddenly to the far northwest, as though the vessel had been carried away by some adverse current or contrary wind away into the Arctic seas.

Here, then, I had a rough sort of explanation of the Pilgrim’s voyage.

I was leaving the captain’s room, taking the charts with me, when, on giving a last look round, I noticed a sleeping berth curtained off by a plaid shawl.  I drew the curtain aside, and saw something sparkling.  It was a beautiful diamond ring that encircled one of the fingers of a man’s thin white hand.  The hand was clasped over some small object that I did not see.  Turning down a heavy fur rug that covered the man’s dead body I noticed that his clothing, his appearance generally, were not those of a seaman.  He had a long, silky, brown beard, and a very handsome face, which, however, was marred by an ugly scar on the brow.  I judged him to be about thirty-five years old.  Lying on his breast was a thick notebook, which, on opening the pages, I found to be filled with writing in a foreign language.

Turning from the bed place I was again attracted by the man’s sparkling ring.  I gently opened the hand and drew the ring from the thin finger, and as I did so a small gold locket dropped from the hand.  It contained the painted portrait of a very beautiful girl with fair hair and fine blue eyes.  I looked in strange admiration at the face.  It had probably been the last object the dead man had seen.  With a feeling of reverence I put the locket back into his hand.  But with feelings that were less reverent I placed the diamond ring on my own finger, and took possession of the notebook.  These, with the charts and the log book of the man in the after cabin, I carried on board the Falcon.

That afternoon I chanced to look overboard at the Pilgrim’s waterline.  She had sunk at least three more inches.  I felt that, whatever happened to myself and the schooner, the Pilgrim at least would never again reach port, and I determined to save from the vessel what articles might be of use to me in case I should be able to return to land.  I therefore went on board again and took possession of the ship’s papers, some firearms and cabin furniture, a number of English books, and a small chest that I found in the captain’s room.