In after days a weird significance was attached to this simple phrase.
"Why do you carry about a bit of tin ?" she went on.
How the atmosphere of deception clung to him! Here was a man compelled to lie outrageously who, in happier years, had prided himself on scrupulous accuracy even in small things.
"Plague upon it!" he silently protested.

"Subterfuge and deceit are as much at home in this deserted island as in Mayfair." "I found it here, Miss Deane," he answered.
Luckily she interpreted "here" as applying to the cave.
"Let me see it.

May I ?" He handed it to her.

She could make nothing of it, so together they puzzled over it.

The sailor rubbed it with a mixture of kerosene and sand.