On its lid was painted, "The Reverend Henry Austin.

Passenger to Acra," showing that it had once been his uncle's cabin box.

The key hung from the handle, and having lit more candles, Alan drew it out and unlocked it, to be greeted by a smell of musty documents done up in great bundles.
One by one he placed them on the floor.

It was a dreary occupation alone there in that great, silent room at the dead of night, one indeed with which he was soon satisfied, for somehow it reminded him of rifling coffins in a vault.

Before him so carefully put away lay the records of a good if not a distinguished life, and until this moment he had never found the energy even to look through them.
At length he came to the end of the bundles and saw that beneath lay a number of manuscript books packed closely with their backs upwards, marked--"Journal"-- and with the year and sometimes the place of the author's residence.