stranger on the fullest cross-questioning, on the closest examination
of what remains in the witness's memory. I should like to hear, before
opening the manuscript, what you believe to have been its origin.

"I can only say," he answered, "that what must be inferred from the
manuscript is what I had inferred before I opened it. That same
explanation was the only one that ever occurred to me, even in the
first night. It then seemed to me utterly incredible, but it is still
the only conceivable explanation that my mind can suggest."

"Did you," asked I, "connect the shock and the relics, which I presume
you know were not on the island before the shock, with the meteor and
the strange obscuration of the sun?"

"I certainly did," he said. "Having done so, there could be but one
conclusion as to the quarter from which the shock was received."

The examination and transcription of the manuscript, with all the help
afforded me by my friend's previous efforts, was the work of several
years. There is, as the reader will see, more than one _hiatus valde
deflendus_, as the scholiasts have it, and there are passages in
which, whether from the illegibility of the manuscript or the
employment of technical terms unknown to me, I cannot be certain of
the correctness of my translation. Such, however, as it is, I give it
to the world, having fulfilled, I believe, every one of the conditions
imposed upon me by my late and deeply regretted friend.

The character of the manuscript is very curious, and its translation
was exceedingly difficult. The material on which it is written
resembles nothing used for such purposes on Earth. It is more like a