Then, come good wind or bad, I shall save my soul, and my honour as a captain. I am growing weaker, and the night is coming on. If He can look me in the face again, I may not have time to act.

If the ship is wrecked, perhaps this bottle will be found. I hope those who find it understand. If not ... well, then everyone shall know that I did as much as I could do. God and the Blessed Virgin and the saints help a poor ignorant man trying to do his duty.'

____

Of course the court could not say how the man died. There is no evidence to examine. Whether or not the captain himself committed the murders, no-one can now say. Almost everyone here believes that the captain is simply a hero. He is to be given a public funeral. Already it is arranged that his body is to be taken with a train of boats up the river Eske and then brought back to Tate Hill Pier and up the abbey steps. He is to be buried in the churchyard on the cliff.

Vocabulary:

Come: Here it means 'if this thing happens'.
Coming on: Approaching, nearly there
Wrecked: Destroyed in a crash
Blessed Virgin: The Christian Virgin Mary
Saints: People especially loved by God
Evidence: Signs that something is true
Commit: Do something serious
Train: Things that follow
Abbey: A kind of church