A few cautious strides and vigorous whacks with the stick laid bare the cause of such prodigality in a soil covered with drifted sand and lumps of black and white speckled coral.  The trees and bushes enclosed a well—­safe-guarded it, in fact, from being choked with sand during the first gale that blew.

Delighted with this discovery, more precious than diamonds at the moment, for he doubted the advisability of existing on the water supply of the pitcher-plant, he knelt to peer into the excavation.  The well had been properly made.  Ten feet down he could see the reflection of his face.  Expert hands had tapped the secret reservoir of the island.  By stretching to the full extent of his arm, he managed to plunge the stick into the water.  Tasting the drops, he found that they were quite sweet.  The sand and porous rock provided the best of filter-beds.

He rose, wall pleased, and noted that on the opposite side the appearance of the shrubs and tufts of long grass indicated the existence of a grown-over path towards the cliff.  He followed it, walking carelessly, with eyes seeking the prospect beyond, when something rattled and cracked beneath his feet.  Looking down, he was horrified to find he was trampling on a skeleton.

Had a venomous snake coiled its glistening folds around his leg he would not have been more startled.  But this man of iron nerve soon recovered.  He frowned deeply after the first involuntary heart-throb.

With the stick he cleared away the undergrowth, and revealed the skeleton of a man.  The bones were big and strong, but oxidized by the action of the air.  Jenks had injured the left tibia by his tread, but three fractured ribs and a smashed shoulder-blade told some terrible unwritten story.

Beneath the mournful relics were fragments of decayed cloth.  It was blue serge.  Lying about were a few blackened objects—­brass buttons marked with an anchor.  The dead man’s boots were in the best state of preservation, but the leather had shrunk and the nails protruded like fangs.

A rusted pocket-knife lay there, and on the left breast of the skeleton rested a round piece of tin, the top of a canister, which might have reposed in a coat pocket.  Jenks picked it up.  Some curious marks and figures were punched into its surface.  After a hasty glance he put it aside for more leisurely examination.

No weapon was visible.  He could form no estimate as to the cause of the death of this poor unknown, nor the time since the tragedy had occurred.

Jenks must have stood many minutes before he perceived that the skeleton was headless.  At first he imagined that in rummaging about with the stick he had disturbed the skull.  But the most minute search demonstrated that it had gone, had been taken away, in fact, for the plants which so effectually screened the lighter bones would not permit the skull to vanish.

Then the frown on the sailor’s face became threatening, thunderous.  He recollected the rusty kriss.  Indistinct memories of strange tales of the China Sea crowded unbidden to his brain.