hold. He therefore resolved to return, and wait till the next night.
With this design, he proceeded to loosen the hatch, so that he might
have as little detention as possible when he should come again. No
sooner had he loosened it than Tiger sprang eagerly to the small
opening produced, snuffed for a moment, and then uttered a long
whine, scratching at the same time, as if anxious to remove the
covering with his paws. There could be no doubt, from his behaviour,
that he was aware of my being in the hold, and Augustus thought it
possible that he would be able to get to me if he put him down. He
now hit upon the expedient of sending the note, as it was especially
desirable that I should make no attempt at forcing my way out at
least under existing circumstances, and there could be no certainty
of his getting to me himself on the morrow as he intended.
After-events proved how fortunate it was that the idea occurred to
him as it did; for, had it not been for the receipt of the note, I
should undoubtedly have fallen upon some plan, however desperate, of
alarming the crew, and both our lives would most probably have been
sacrificed in consequence.

Having concluded to write, the difficulty was now to procure the
materials for so doing. An old toothpick was soon made into a pen;
and this by means of feeling altogether, for the between-decks was as
dark as pitch. Paper enough was obtained from the back of a letter- a
duplicate of the forged letter from Mr. Ross. This had been the
original draught; but the handwriting not being sufficiently well
imitated, Augustus had written another, thrusting the first, by good
fortune, into his coat-pocket, where it was now most opportunely
discovered. Ink alone was thus wanting, and a substitute was
immediately found for this by means of a slight incision with the
pen-knife on the back of a finger just above the nail- a copious flow