There were still two rooms which he had not yet examined. These were at the end of the cabin, at the stern of the ship, each taking up one half of the width. The sand had drifted in here to about the same depth as in the side-rooms. He entered first the one nearest him, which was on the right side of the ship. This room was about ten feet long, extending from the middle of the ship to the side, and about six feet wide. A telescope was the first thing which attracted his attention. It lay in a rack near the doorway. He took it down, but it fell apart at once, being completely corroded. In the middle of the room there was a compass, which hung from the ceiling. But the iron pivot had rusted, and the plate had fallen down. Some more guns and swords were here, but all rusted like the others. There was a table at the wall by the stern, covered with sand. An arm-chair stood close by it, and opposite this was a couch. At the end of this room was a berth which had the same appearance as the other berths in the other rooms. The quilts and mattresses as he felt them beneath the damp sand were equally decayed. Too long had the ship been exposed to the ravages of time, and Brandon saw that to seek for any thing here which could be of the slightest service to himself was in the highest degree useless.
This last room seemed to him as though it might have been the captain's. That captain was Cigole, the very man who had flung him overboard. He had unconsciously by so doing sent him to the scene of his early crime. Was this visit to be all in vain? Thus far it seemed so. But might there not yet be something beneath this sand which might satisfy him in his search?
There still remained another room. Might there not be something there?
Brandon went back into the cabin and stood looking at the open doorway of that other room.
He hesitated. Why? Perhaps it was the thought that here was his last chance, that here his exploration must end, and if nothing came of it then all this adventure would be in vain. Then the fantastic hopes and fears which by turns had agitated him would prove to have been absurd, and he, instead of being sent by Fate as the minister of vengeance, would be only the commonplace victim of an everyday accident.