A volume of Macaulay's ESSAYS
and a shilling Shakespeare led the van of the BELLES
LETTRES; the rest were novels. Several Miss
Braddon's--of course, AURORA FLOYD, which has
penetrated to every island of the Pacific, a good many
cheap detective books, ROB ROY, Auerbach's AUF
DER HOHE, in the German, and a prize temperance story,
pillaged (to judge by the stamp) from an Anglo-Indian
circulating library.
"The Admiralty man gives a fine picture of our island,"
remarked Nares, who had turned up Midway Island. "He
draws the dreariness rather mild, but you can make out
he knows the place."
"Captain," I cried, "you've struck another point in
this mad business. See here," I went on eagerly,
drawing from my pocket a crumpled fragment of the
DAILY OCCIDENTAL which I had inherited from Jim:
"Misled by Hoyt's PACIFIC DIRECTORY? Where's Hoyt?"
"Let's look into that," said Nares. "I got that book
on purpose for this cruise." Therewith he fetched it
from the shelf in his berth, turned to Midway Island,
and read the account aloud. It stated with precision
that the Pacific Mail Company were about to form a
depot there, in preference to Honolulu, and that they
had already a station on the island.
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