This bit of news hit Jack like a yard-arm across the brow, and shut him up long enough for Dappa to break the seal and smooth the page out on the table. "It is in English," he announced, and took a swallow of chocolate to whet his whistle. " ‘To Jack Shaftoe, esq. The inexorable tides ebb and flow ’neath the battlements of the Castle as I pen these lines, reminding me that what is submerged and seemingly drown’d forever in fatal Seas may yet rise forth from Neptune ’s wat’ry Dungeon if one hath only Patience to await the natural Wheeling of the Heavens. I am put in mind of a certain Man who when I last spied him seem’d to’ve been dragged down by the Moral Undertow which sweepeth away even strong souls who stand long in it, and to have fallen into a condition of Degradation worse than Death; and whose Body was scarcely more fit than his Spirit, as he was far gone with the French Pox and afflicted with divers Wounds and Amputations to boot—’ "