Front matter (continued 2)

It gave, him a curious, mixed feeling of depression and elation. He felt at once homeless and endowed with the freedom of the universe. He had burned his boats, he said confidently to himself, and was going forth to begin a new life, to conquer a new world. And he set his teeth and hung on to the heaving bulwark with grim determination.

But the sense of elation and width of outlook dwindled with the sinking lights. The feeling of homelessness and helplessness grew steadily upon him. He had taken the precaution of stowing away a good meal before he set foot on board, and he lived on it for three days.

He had never been bodily sick in his life before, but sick as he now was he was not too far gone to note the wretched peculiarity of his sensations, and to muse upon them and the ridiculousness of the provision he had made, at the Captain's suggestion, to supplement the usual cabin fare.

He could not imagine himself ever eating again, as he lay there in his heaving bunk, with nothing to distract his mind from the unhappy vacuums above and below but the heavy tread of feet overhead at times, and the ceaseless rush and thrash of the waves a few inches from his ear, and the grinning face of the cabin-boy who came in at intervals to ask if he would like anything yet.

But by degrees his head ceased to swim if he lifted it an inch off the pillow. By further degrees he found himself crouching up and clinging like a cat while he gazed unsteadily out of the tiny round porthole at the tumbling green and white water outside. Still further determination got him somehow into his clothes, and he dared to feel hungry and empty without nausea. Then he crawled out to the deck, feeling like a soiled rag. But the brisk south-west wind cleaned and braced him, and presently he nibbled a biscuit and found himself as hungry as a starving dog.

After that he very soon found his sea-legs, and by the fourth day he was a new man, eating ravenously to make up for lost time, and keenly interested in all about him.

So far they had had favourable weather and made good way. But Captain Bain was a fervent believer in the inevitability of equinoctials, and prophesied gales ahead, and the worse for being overdue.

Wulfrey learned, from one and another, chatting at meals with the Captain or Sheumaish Macro, one or other of whom was generally on deck, or with Jock Steele the carpenter, who also acted as boatswain, that the 'Grace-à-Dieu' was French-built which, according to Steele, accounted for the fineness of her lines.

"We build stouter but we cannot touch them for cut. She's as pretty a little ship as ever I set eyes on and floats like a gull," was the character Steele gave her. And he should know, as he'd made four voyages in her since their owners in Glasgow bought her out of the Prize Court, and she'd never given them any undue trouble even in the very worst of weather.

The crew, again according to Steele, were a very mixed lot, a few good seamen, the rest just lubbers out of the crimp house.

With Captain Bain and Sheumaish Macro, the mate, he got on well enough, but found both by nature very self-contained and manifesting no inclination for more than the necessary civilities of the situation.

"And why should they?" he said to himself. "I'm an outsider and they know nothing more about me than I've told them myself. Another fifteen or twenty days and we part and are not likely ever to meet again."

He made one discovery about them, however, which disquieted him somewhat. They were both heavy drinkers, but they usually so arranged matters, by taking their full bouts at different times, as not to bring the ship into serious peril.

Wulfrey's eyes were opened to it by the fact of his not being able to sleep one night. After tossing and tumbling in his bunk for a couple of hours, and finding sleep as far off as ever, he dressed again sufficiently to go on deck for a blow. As he passed through the cabin he found Captain Bain there with his head sunk on his arms on the table, and, fearing he might be ill, he went up to him. But he needed no medical skill to tell him what was the matter. The old man was as drunk as a lord and breathing like an apoplectic hog. So he eased his neck gear and left him to sleep it off.

Macro was on deck in charge of the ship. Wulfrey simply told him he had been unable to sleep, but made no mention of the Captain's condition. And the mate said,

"Ay, we're just getting into thick of Gulf Stream and it tells on one."

Another night he found Steele in charge, and on the growl at the length of his watch, and gathered from him that both Captain and mate had on this occasion been indulging in a bit drink and were snoring in their bunks.

He could only hope that Captain Bain's prognosticated equinoctials, which were now considerably overdue, would not come upon them when both their chiefs were incapacitated. And his only consolation was the thought that this was not an exceptional occurrence but probably their usual habit when well afloat, and that so far no disaster had befallen them.

So, day after day, they sped along west-south-west, making good way and sighting none but an occasional distant sail. Then they ran into mists and clammy weather, and sometimes had a wind and drove along with the swirling fog or across it, and sometimes lay rocking idly and making no way at all.

Wulfrey gathered, from occasional words they let fall between themselves, and from their answers to his own questions, that this was all usual and to be expected. They were getting towards Newfoundland where the Northern currents met the Southern, hence the fog, and it was too early for icebergs, so there was no danger in pressing on whenever the wind permitted.

Their seventeenth day out was the dullest they had had, heavy and windless, with a shrouded sky and a close gray horizon and, to Wulfrey's thinking, a sense of something impending. It was as though Nature had gone into the sulks and was brooding gloomily over some grievance.

Captain Bain stripped the ship of her canvas, and sent down the topmasts and yards, and made all snug for anything that might turn up. All day and all night they lay wallowing in vast discomfort, and Wulfrey lost all relish for his food again.

"What do you make of it, Bo's'un?" he asked, as he clawed his way up to Steele on the after deck, where he was temporarily in charge again.

"Someth'n's comin', sir," said Steele portentously, "but what it is beats me, unless it's one o' them e-quy-noctials the skipper's bin looking for."

In the night the fog closed down on them as thick as cotton wool; and, without a breath of wind, the long seas came rolling in upon them out of the thick white bank on one side and out into the thick white bank on the other, till their scuppers dipped deep and worked backwards, shooting up long hissing white jets over the deck, and making everything wet and uncomfortable. Every single joint and timber in the ship seemed to creak and groan as if in pain, and Wulfrey, as he listened in the dark to the strident jerkings and grindings and general complainings of the gear, and pictured the wild sweeps and swoops of the masts away up in the fog there, wondered how long it could all stand the strain, and how soon it would come clattering down on top of them. Once, when a bigger roll than usual flung him against the mainmast and he clung to it for a moment's safety, the rending groans that came up through it from the depths below sent a creepy chill down his spine. It sounded so terribly as though the very heart of the ship were coming up by the roots.

Sleep was out of the question. His cabin was unbearable. Its dolorous creakings seemed to threaten collapse and burial at any moment. If they had to go down he would sooner be drowned in the open than like a rat in its hole. And so he had crawled up on deck to see what was towards.

The only comfort he found—and that of a very mixed character—was in the sight of Captain Bain and the mate, sitting one on each side of the cabin table with their legs curled knowingly round its stout wooden supports, which were bolted to the floor, and which they used alternately as fender and anchor to the rolling of the ship.

They had made all possible provision against contingencies. They could do no more, and it was no good worrying, so now they sat smoking philosophically and drinking now and again from a bottle of rum which hung by the neck between them from a string attached to the beam above their heads.

Wulfrey stood the discomforts of the deck till he was chilled to the marrow, then he tumbled into the cabin, and annexed a third leg of the table and sat with the philosophers and waited events.

"It's hard on the ship, Captain," he said, by way of being companionable. But the Captain only grunted and deftly tipped some rum into his tin pannikin as the bottle swung towards him on its way towards the roof. And the mate looked at him wearily as much as to say, "Man! don't bother us with your babytalk," and it seemed to him that they had both got a fairly full cargo aboard.

However, he decided it was not for him to judge or condemn. They knew their own business better than he did. There was no wind, no way on the ship, and all they could do was to lie and wallow and wait for better times. And the fact that they took it so calmly reassured him somewhat.

The cabin was so full of fog and tobacco-smoke that the light from the swinging oil-lamp could barely penetrate beyond the table. It made a dull ghastly smudge of yellow light through which the bottle swung to and fro like an uncouth pendulum, and he sat and watched it. Now it was up above his head between him and the mate; now it was sweeping gracefully over the table; now it was up above the Captain, who reached out and tipped some more rum into his pannikin.

He watched it till it began to exert a mesmeric influence on, him and his head began to feel light and swimmy. He knew something about Mesmer and his experiments from his reading at home. He experienced a detached interest in his own condition and wondered vaguely if the bottle would succeed in putting him to sleep. He tried to keep his eyes on it, but they kept wandering off to the Captain, on whom it had already done its business, though in a different way.

He was dead tired. It was, he reckoned, quite six-and-thirty hours since he had had any sleep. What time of night or morning it was he had no idea. This awful rolling and groaning and creaking seemed to have been going on for an incalculable time.

What with the heavy unwholesomeness of the atmosphere, and the monotonous swing of the bottle, and the lethargic impassivity of his companions, he fell at last into a condition of dull stupidity, which might have ended in sleep but for the necessity of alternately hanging on to and fending off the table, as the roll of the ship flung him away from it or at it. And how long this went on he never knew.

He was jerked back to life by a sudden clatter of feet overhead and a shout. Then he was flung bodily on to the table, and found himself lying over it and looking down at Captain Bain, who had tumbled backwards in a heap into a corner. The rum-bottle banged against the roof and rained its fragments down on him. The lamp leaned up at a preposterous angle and stopped there.

"We're done," thought Wulfrey dazedly, and became aware of fearsome sounds outside,—a wild howling shriek as of all the fiends out of the pit,—thunderous blows as of mighty hammers under which the little ship reeled and staggered,—then grisly crackings and rendings and crashes on deck, mingled with the feeble shouts of men.

Then, shuddering and trembling, the ship slowly righted herself and Wulfrey breathed again. Outside, the howling shriek was as loud as ever, the banging and buffeting worse than before.

Macro unhooked his long legs from the table and made for the door. The Captain gathered himself up dazedly and rolled after him, and Wulfrey followed as best he could.

But he could see very little. The fog was gone. The fierce rush of the gale drove the breath back into his throat and came near to choking him. Huge green seas topped with snarling white came leaping up over the side of the ship near him. A man with an axe was chopping furiously at the shrouds of the fallen main-mast amid a wild tangle of ropes and spars. As they parted, the ship swung free and went labouring off before the gale under somewhat easier conditions, and Wulfrey hung tight in the cabin doorway and breathed still more hopefully. He had thought the end was come, but they were still afloat, though sadly shorn and battered. What their chances of ultimate safety might be was beyond him, but while there was life there was hope.

XIV

For three days life to Wulfrey was a grim experience made up of damp discomfort, lack of food and rest, and growing hopelessness.

Both their masts had gone like carrots, leaving only their ragged stumps sticking up out of the deck. "An' if they hadn't we'd bin gone ourselves," growled the carpenter to him one day. Where they fell the sides of the ship were smashed and torn, and the hungry waves came yapping up through the gaps, most horribly close and threatening.

Three men had been washed overboard in that first fierce onrush. The rest crouched miserably in the forecastle, and no man on board could remember what it felt like to be dry and warm and full.

Meals there were none. When any man's hunger forced him to eat, he wolfed sodden biscuit and a chunk of raw pork, and washed it down with rum.

So ghastly did the discomfort become, as the wretched days succeeded the still more miserable nights, that at last Wulfrey, for one, was prepared to welcome even the end as a change for the better.

Observations were out of the question. In these four days they never once saw sun or moon or star, nothing but a close black sky, gray with flying spume. The great seas came roaring out of it behind them and rushed roaring into it in front of them, and where they were getting to, beyond the fact that they were driving continuously more or less west-by-north, no man knew.

Captain Bain and the mate and the carpenter had done all that could be done since the catastrophe, but that was very little. An attempt was made to rig a jury mast on the stump of the foremast, but the gale ripped it away with a jeering howl and would have none of it. With some planking torn from the inside of the ship they barricaded the seas out of the forecastle as well as they could. It was the carpenter's idea to fix these planks upright, so that their ends stood up somewhat above the top of the forecastle, and so great was the grip of the gale that that slight projection sufficed to keep their head straight before it and afforded them slight steerage way.

So they staggered along, dismantled and discomfited, and waited for the gale to blow itself out or them to perdition, and were worn so low at last that they did not much care which, so only an end to their misery.

And the end came as unexpectedly as the beginning. From sheer weariness they slept at times, in chill discomfort and dankest wretchedness, just where they sat or lay. And Wulfrey was lying so, in a stupor of misery, caring neither for life nor death, when the final catastrophe came.

Without any warning the ship struck something with a horrible shock that flung everything inside it ajee. Then she heeled over on her starboard side, baring her breast to the enemy.

The great green waves leaped at her like wolves on a foundered deer. They had been chasing her for three days past and now they had got her. She was down and they proceeded to worry her to pieces. No ship ever built could stand against their fury. The 'Grace-à-Dieu' melted into fragments as though she had been built of cardboard.

Wulfrey, jerked violently out of the corner where he had been lying, rolled down towards the door of the cabin as the ship heeled over. As he clawed himself up to look out, a green mountain of water caught him up and carried him high over the port bulwarks which towered like a house above him, and swept him along on its broken crest.

He could swim, but no swimmer could hope to save himself by swimming in such a sea, and he was weak and worn with the miseries of the last three days.

He had no hope of deliverance, but yet struck out mechanically to keep his head above water, and his thrashing arm struck wood. He gripped it with the grip of a drowning man and clung for dear life.

It was a large square structure, planking braced with cross-pieces, almost a raft. He hung to the edge while the water ran out of his mouth and wits, and then, inch by inch, hauled himself cautiously further aboard, and, lying flat, looked anxiously about for signs of his shipmates, but with little hope.

He could see but a yard or two on either side, and then only the threatening welter of the monstrous green seas, terrifyingly close and swelling with menace.

Nothing? ... Stay!—a white gleam under the green, like a scrap of paper in a whirlpool, and a desperate face emerged a yard or so away and a wildly-seeking hand.

The anguished eyes besought him, and, not knowing what else to do, he gripped two of the cross-pieces of his raft and launched his legs out towards the drowning man. They were seized as in a vice, and presently, inch by inch, the gripping hands crept up his body till the other could lay hold of the raft for himself. And Wulfrey, turning, saw that it was the mate, Sheumaish Macro, whose life he had saved.

They drew themselves cautiously up into such further safety as the frail ark offered and lay there spent. And Wulfrey, for one, wondered if the quicker end had not been the greater gain.

XV

Sleeping and eating anyhow and at any time, they had lost all count of time this last day or two. It was, however, daylight of a kind, but so gray and murky and mixed with flying spume that they could see but little.

Neither man had spoken since they crawled up on to the raft. Death was so close that speech seemed futile. They both lay flat on their stomachs, gripping tight, and peering hopelessly through nearly closed eyes, expectant of nothing, doubting the wisdom of their choice of the longer death.

"God!" cried Macro of a sudden, as they swung up the back of a wave. "Where in —— ha' we got to?"

And Wulfrey got a glimpse of most amazing surroundings.

Right ahead of them the sea was all abristle with what, to his quick amazed glance, looked like the bones and ribs of multitudinous ships, the ruins of a veritable Armada.

Now it was all hidden, as they sank into a weltering green valley with tumbling green walls all about them. Then the solid green bottom of their valley was ripped into furious white foam, and stark black baulks of timber came lunging up through it, all crusted with barnacles, festooned with hanging weeds, and laced with streaming white. They looked like grisly arms of deep-sea monsters reaching up out of the depths to lay hold of them. They seemed intent on impaling the frail raft. They seemed to change places, to dart hither and thither as though to head it off, to lie in wait for it, to spring up in its course. It was frightful and unnerving. Wulfrey shut his eyes tight and set his teeth, and waited for the inevitable crash and the end.

A great wave lifted them high above the venomous black timbers and, swinging on its course, dropped them as deftly as a crane could have done it, into the inside of a mighty cage.

Wave after wave did its best to lift them out and speed them on. Their raft rose and fell and banged rudely against the ribs of their prison. Up and down they swung, and round and round, bumping and grinding till they feared the raft would go to pieces. But the tide had passed its highest and the storm was blowing itself out, and they had come to the end of the voyage.

"We're in hell," gasped the mate, as he clung to the jerking cross-pieces to keep himself from being flung off, and to Wulfrey's storm-broken senses it seemed that he was right.

XVI

All that night they swung and bumped inside their cage, with somewhat less of bodily discomfort as the wind fell and the sea went down, but with only such small relief to their minds as postponement of immediate death might offer.

Wulfrey lay prone on the raft, grimping to it mechanically, utterly worn out with all he had gone through these last four days. He sank into a stupor again and lay heedless of everything.

The tide fell to its lowest and was rising again when dawn came, and though the huge green waves still rolled through their cage, and swung them to and fro, and sent them rasping against its massive bars, they were as nothing compared with the waves of yesterday.

It was the sound of Macro cracking shell-fish and eating them that roused Wulfrey. He raised his heavy head and looked round. The mate hacked off a bunch of huge blue-black mussels from the post they were grinding against at the moment, opened several of them and put them under his nose. Without a word he began eating and felt the better for them.

Presently he sat up and looked about him in amazement, and rubbed the salt out of his smarting eyes and looked again.

"Where in heaven's name are we?" he gasped.

And well he might, for stranger sight no man ever set eyes on.

"Last night I thocht we were in hell," said Macro grimly. "An' seems to me we're not far from it. We're in the belly of a dead ship an' there's nought but dead ships round us."

Their immediate harbourage, into which the friendly wave had dropped them, was composed of huge baulks of timber like those that had tried to end them the night before, sea-sodden and crusted thick with shell-fish, and as Wulfrey's eyes wandered along them he saw that the mate was right. They were undoubtedly the mighty weather-worn ribs of some great ship, canting up naked and forlorn out of the depths and reaching far above their heads. There in front was the great curving stem-piece, and yon stiff straight piece behind was the stern-post.

But when his eyes travelled out beyond these things his jaw dropped with sheer amazement.

Everywhere about them, wherever he looked, and as far as his sight could reach, lay dead ships and parts of ships. Some, like their own, entire gaunt skeletons, but more still in grisly fragments. Close alongside them a great once-white, now weather-gray and ghostly figurehead representing an angel gazed forlornly at them out of sightless eyes. From the position of its broken arms and the round fragment of wood still in its mouth, it had probably once blown a trumpet, but the storm-fiends would have no music but their own and had long since made an end of that.

Close beside it jutted up a piece of a huge mast, with part of the square top still on and ragged ropes trailing from it. Alongside it a bowsprit stuck straight up to heaven, defiant of fate, and more forlornly, a smaller ship's whole mast with yards and broken gear still hanging to it all tangled and askew. And beyond, whichever way he looked—always the same, dead ships and the limbs and fragments of them.

"It's a graveyard," he gasped.

"Juist that," said the mate dourly, "an' we're the only living things in it."

And presently, brooding upon it, he said, "There'll be sand down below an' they're bedded in it. When tide goes down again maybe we can get out."

"Where to?"

"Deil kens! ... But it cann't be worse than stopping here."

The slow tide lifted them higher and higher within their cage, hiding some of the baleful sights but giving them wider view over the whole grim field. They sat, and by way of change stood and lay, on their cramped platform. They knocked off shell-fish and ate them. So far, so water-sodden had they been of late, they had not suffered from thirst, but the dread of it was with them.

Then, slowly, the waters sank, and all the bristling bones of ships came up again.

"Can you swim?" asked Macro abruptly at last.

"I can. But I feel very weak. I can't go far I'm afraid."

"We can't stop on here."

"Where shall we go?"

"Over yonder. They're thickest there and they stand out more. Mebbe it's shallower that way."

"I'll do my best to follow you. If I can't, you go on."

"Nay. You gave me a hand last night. We'll stick together, and sooner we start the better.... Stay ... mebbe we can——" and he began pounding at the end planks of their raft with his foot to start them from the cross-pieces.

"'Twas the roof of the galley," he explained, "and none too well made. It got stove in last voyage and we rigged this one up ourselves. My wonder is it held together in the night."

He managed at last with much stamping to loosen four boards.

"One under each arm will help," he said, "An' we can paddle along an' not get tired."

He let himself down into the water, shipped a board under each arm, and struck out between two of the gaunt ribs, and Wulfrey followed him, somewhat doubtful as to what might come of it.

But the mate had taken his bearings and was following a reasoned course. Over yonder the wrecks lay thick. There might be one on which they could find shelter—even food. But that he hardly dared to hope for. As far as he had been able to judge, at that distance, they were all wrecks of long ago and mostly only bare ribs and stumps.

To Wulfrey, from water-level, the sea ahead seemed all abristle with shipping, as thick, he thought to himself, as the docks at Liverpool. But there all was life and bustling activity, and here was only death,—-dead ships and pieces of ships, and maybe dead men. The feeling of it was upon them both, and they splashed slowly along with as little noise as possible, as though they feared to rouse the sleepers who had once peopled all these gruesome ruins.

"See yon!" whispered Macro hoarsely, as he slowed up and waited for Wulfrey to come alongside, and following the jerk of his head Wulf saw the figure of a man grotesquely spread-eagled in a vast tangle of cordage that hung like a net from a broken mast.

"We had better see," said Wulfrey, and kicked along towards it, the mate following with visible reluctance.

It was the body of Jock Steele, the carpenter, livid and sodden, and many hours dead.

"I would we hadna seen him," growled Macro.

"He'll do us no harm. He was a decent man. I'm sorry he's gone. Is there any chance of any of the others being alive?"

"Deil a chance!"

"Still, we are——"

"You had the deil's own luck and it's only by you I'm here. Let's get on," and they splashed on again.

Past wreck after wreck, grim and gaunt and grisly, mostly of very ancient date, all swept bare to the bone by the fury of the seas, all with the water washing coldly through them. Now and again Macro growled terse comments,—

"A warship,—from the size of her. See those ribs, they'll last another hundred years. And yon's a Dutchman. They build stout too. Mostly British though, bound to be, hereabouts."

"Have you any idea where we are, then?"

"An idea—ay! I've heard tell o' this place, but I never met anyone had been here. They mostly never come back. They call it what you called it a while ago—'The Graveyard.'"

"And where is it?"

"Sable Island, if I'm right,—'bout one hundred miles off Nova Scotia."

"And is there any island?"

"Ay,—on the chart, but I never met any man had been there. We're looking for it. There's no depth here or all them ribs wouldn't be sticking up like that. They're stuck in the sand below. Must be over yonder where they lie so thick.... An' a fearsome place when we get there, with the spirits of all them dead men all about it—hundreds of 'em,—thousands, mebbe."

"Do ships ever call there?"

"Not if they can help it, I trow. It's Death brings 'em and he holds 'em tight.... Hearken to that now!"—and he stopped as though in doubt about going further.

And Wulfrey, listening intently, caught a faint thin sound of wailing far away in the distance. It rose and fell, shrill and piercing and very discomforting, though very far away.

"What is it?" he jerked.

"Spirits," breathed Macro, and his face was more scared and haggard even than before.

"Nonsense!" said Wulfrey, with an assumption of brusqueness for his own reassurance, for this dismal progress through the graveyard was telling sorely on him also, and the sounds that came wavering across the water were as like the shrieking of souls in torment as anything he could imagine. "There are no such things. Don't be a fool, man!"

"Man alive!—no spirits? The Islands are full o' them, an' this place fuller still. Yes, indeed!"

But it was obviously impossible to float about there for ever. The water was not nearly so cold as Wulfrey had expected, but the strain of the night and of the preceding days of semi-starvation had told on him, and he was feeling that he could not stand much more. He set off doggedly again towards the thickest agglomeration of dead shipping in front, and the mate followed him with a face full of foreboding.

They went in silence, paying no heed now to the things they passed on the way, though the apparently endless succession of dead ships and the parts of them was not without its effect on their already broken spirits.

"Gosh!" cried Macro of a sudden. "I touched ground or I'm a Dutchman! Ay—sand it is," and Wulfrey sinking his feet found firm bottom.

"Better keep the floats," suggested the mate. "Mebbe it's only the side of a bank we're on."

They waded on, breast-deep, and presently were out of their depth again. But the feel of something below them, and the certainty that it was still not very far away, were cheering. In a few minutes they were walking again, having evidently crossed a channel between two banks. And so, alternately walking and swimming, they drew at last towards the jungle of wreckage; and all the time, from somewhere beyond it, rose those piercing, wailing screams which Macro in his heart was certain came from the spirits of the dead.

Here the water was no more than up to their knees and shoaling still, and they came now upon more than the bones of ships,—chaotic masses of masts and spars and rigging piled high and wide in fantastic confusion, and in among them, tangled beyond even the power of the seas to chase them further, barrels and boxes and crates, some still whole, mostly broken; rotting bales, and pitiful and ridiculous fragments of their contents worked in among them as if by impish hands.

"Gosh, what wastry!" said Macro at the sight. "There's many a thousand pounds of goods piled here,—ay, hunderds of thousands, webbe."

"I'd give it all for a crust of bread," said Wulfrey hungrily.

"An' mebbe there's that too. If any o' them casks has flour in 'em we needn' starve. It cakes round the sides wi' the wet, but the core's all right."

Then, beyond the gigantic barrier of wastry, rose again that shrill screaming and shrieking, louder than ever, and Macro said "Gosh!" and looked like bolting back into the sea.

Wulfrey, determined to fathom it, hauled himself painfully up a tangle of ropes and clambered to the top of the pile and saw, about a mile away, a narrow yellow spit of sand, and all about it a dense cloud of sea-birds, myriads of them, circling, diving, swooping, quarrelling.

One moment the vast gray cloud of them drooped to the sea and seemed to settle there, the next it was whirling aloft like a writhing water-spout, every component drop of which was a venomous bundle of feathers shrieking and screaming its hardest in the bitter fight for food. And the harsh and raucous clamour of them, each intent on its own, had in it something fiendishly inhuman and chilling to the blood.

"It's only sea-birds, man," he cried to Macro. "Come up and see for yourself," and the mate, with new life at the word, hauled himself up alongside and stood staring.

"My Gosh! ... I never saw the like o' that before," he said at last. "There's millions of 'em. They're fighting ... over our shipmates mebbe.... We needn' starve if we can get at 'em," a sentiment which somehow, in all the circumstances of the case, did not greatly appeal to Wulfrey, hungry as he was.

"If they all set on a man he wouldn't have much chance," he said, with a shiver. "They could pick him clean before he knew where he was."

"It's only dead men they feed on," said Macro, quite himself again, since it was only birds they had to deal with and not disembodied spirits. "There's land. Let's get ashore," and they crawled precariously along over the wreckage, which sagged and dipped beneath them in places, and in places towered high and had to be scaled as best they could, and at times they had to wade or swim from pile to pile.

Amazing things they chanced upon in their course, but were too intent on reaching land to give them more than a passing glance or a shudder. More than once they came on bones of men, jammed in tight among the raffle, and slowly picked by the sea and the things that lived in it till they gleamed white and polished and clean. And their grinning teeth, set in the awful fixed smile of the fleshless, seemed to welcome them as future recruits to their company.

"Ah—ah! So you've come at last!" they seemed to say, as they laughed up at them out of holes and corners. "We've been waiting for you all these years and here you are at last."

There were, too, bales and boxes of what had been rich cloths and silks and satins and coarser stuffs, worried open by the fret of the sea and reduced to sodden slimy punk, and casks and barrels beyond the counting.

"Wastry! Wastry!" panted Macro. "We'll come back sometime, mebbe."

But, for the moment, their only craving was for dry land, to savour the solid safety of it, and get something to eat if they could, and a long long rest.

With desperate determination they dragged their sodden and weary bodies through the shallows beyond, and blind fury filled them with spasmodic vigour as they saw what the sea-birds were feeding on.

Over each poor body the carrion crew settled like flies, and tore and screamed and quarrelled. The two living men dashed at them with angry shouts, and the birds rose in a shrieking host amazed at their interference. But only for a moment. They came swooping down again in a gray-white cloud, with raucous cries and eyes like fiery beads, and beat at them with their wings, and menaced them with already reddened beaks. And they looked so murderously intentioned that the men were fain to bow their heads and run, with flailing arms to keep them off.

And so at last to dry land, and grateful they were for the feel of it, even though it seemed no more than a waste of sand but a few feet above tide-level. That last tussle with the birds had drained their strength completely. They dropped spent on the beach and lay panting.

Their flight had set their chilled blood coursing again, a merciful sun had come up above the clouds that lay along the horizon, and in spite of their hunger and the fact that their very bones felt soaked with salt water, they both fell asleep where they lay.

XVII

Wulfrey was wakened by a sharp stab in the neck, and when he sat up with a start a huge cormorant squawked affrightedly at the dead man coming to life again, and flapped away, gibbering curses and leaving a most atrocious stink behind him.

The mate was still sleeping soundly, and Wulfrey, for the time being more painfully cognisant of the gnawing emptiness within than of the miracle that permitted him any sensation whatever, sat gazing anxiously about and revolving the primary problem of food.

Out there among all that mass of wreckage it would be strange if they could not find something eatable,—cores of flour barrels, perhaps pickled pork, rum almost certainly; and the clammy void inside him craved these things most ardently. But he could not, as yet, imagine himself venturing out there again to get them. Later on perhaps, but for the present the land, such as it was, must provide, for him at all events. He felt that he simply had not the heart or the strength to make the attempt.

Let me say at once that the trying of these men, which came upon them presently, was not in the matter of ways and means. It was of the spirit, not of the flesh. But yet it is necessary to show you how they came through these lesser trials of the flesh only to meet the greater trials of the spirit later on. And even these smaller matters are not entirely devoid of interest.

Many birds came circling round expectantly, and swooped down towards the dark figures lying in the sand, and went off in shrill amazement when they were denied. And Macro at last stretched and yawned and sat up, staring dazedly at Wulfrey.

"Gosh, but I'm hungered," he said at last, as that paramount claim emphasised itself. "Anything to eat?"

"I'm wondering. Plenty of birds, and very bad they smell. I've seen nothing else."

The mate got up heavily and found himself sore and stiff. He stood looking thoughtfully about him.

"What about all that stuff?" and he jerked his head towards the graveyard wreckage.

"I couldn't go again yet."

"Nor me either.... Ground's higher over yonder," he said. "Let's go and see," and they set off slowly over the sand.

The level of high water was thickly strewn with seaweed and small wreckage. The slope of the shore was so long and gentle that no large object could come in unless it were first broken into fragments outside.

The mate kicked over the sea-weed and found some which he put into his mouth.

"Any good?" asked Wulfrey anxiously, hungrier than ever at sight of the other's working jaws.

"Better'n nothing," and he rooted up another piece and handed it over. Wulfrey found it tough and pungent of the sea and, after much chewing, capable of being swallowed, but the most he also could say for it was that it was just that much better than nothing.

They each picked up a piece of wood with which to root in the tangle, and, bending and picking and munching, made their way slowly towards the hummocks in front.

These were a low range of sandhills, some of them as much as thirty feet high, and on the seaward side, which they climbed, they were sparsely clothed with coarse slate-green wire-grass about a foot in height, which bristled up like porcupines' quills and helped to keep the loose soft sand together. They pulled some up to see if the roots looked edible, and found them spreading far and wide below ground in a matted tangle of white succulent-looking tendrils, which proved as tough and unsatisfying as the sea-weed, but had the advantage of a different flavour.

Grubbing along, they climbed heavily through the yielding sand to the top of the nearest hummock. Macro, arriving there first, jerked a gratified "Gosh!" and floundered down the other side whirling his stick, and Wulfrey was just in time to catch the amazing sight of the whole surface of the little valley beyond in violent motion.

He thought at first that something had gone wrong with his eyes, for everywhere he looked the sand seemed to be jumping and skipping and burying itself in itself. And then from the innumerable little flecks of white, bobbing spasmodically all over the place, he perceived that these were rabbits, and the mate was in among them, knocking them on the head as fast as his stick could whirl. By the time Wulfrey reached him he was sitting in the sand, skinning one with his knife, and half a dozen more lay round him.

"Better than roots and seaweed," he said, as he hacked the first in pieces and stuffed some into his mouth and handed some to Wulfrey. "There's millions of 'em. We won't starve," and he started skinning another.

Raw meat was a novelty, to Wulfrey at all events but baby-rabbit flesh is eatable, even raw, and it put new life into them both.

The little valley in which they sat was like an oasis in the sandy desert outside. For here, among the wire-grass grew innumerable small creeping-plants and that so sturdily though so modestly that, in spite of the vast horde of rabbits, the whole place was carpeted with green, and right in the centre, where the ground was lowest and the undergrowth thickest and darkest, was a considerable pool of rainwater, which they found brackish but drinkable.

"All we want now is shelter and fire, and we'll live like kings and fighting-cocks," said Macro, when he had time for anything but rabbit-flesh, and lay back comfortably distent.

"And where shall we find shelter and fire in this place?"

"Man! There's more'n we'll ever need in all our lives, over yonder. But it'll keep.... I'm not for going back there this day anyway. To-morrow, mebbe,——" he said drowsily, and presently they were both fast asleep again. And the rabbits came out at sunset and hopped about them, and sniffed them with quivering noses and disrelish, and the heavy dew fell on them, but they never woke. For Nature had now got all she needed for the reparation of the previous waste, and she was busily at work making good while they slept.

XVIII

Morning broke dull, and heavy. The air was mild but full of moisture, and they were chilled with their long sleep in the open.

"Gosh! but I'd like to feel dry again," said Macro, as they sat munching raw rabbit for breakfast. "D'you feel like going out yonder?"

"I feel three times the man I was yesterday. But should we not go on further first? There may be someone living on the island."

"Not a soul but us two, I warrant you."

"But since we're here there might be others."

"That's so. There might be, but not likely. It's just luck, deil's own luck, 'at those screeching deevils out yonder aren't picking us to pieces like the rest."

"Say Providence, and I'll agree with you," said Wulfrey, who saw no need to ascribe to the devil so obviously good a work as far as they were concerned.

"Ca' it what you like, not one man in a thousand comes alive through what we came through. And I'm not forgetting that but for you I'd no be here myself. We can take a bit look round, but I'm sore set on a covering of some kind and a fire, and some rum would be cheerful. It's in my bones that we'll find all we want out there, and more besides."

So, after breakfast, they set off, carrying a couple of rabbits for provision by the way.

Looking round from the top of the highest hummock, they saw the great twisting cloud of sea-birds hovering over the distant wreckage, and the shrill clamour of their screaming came faintly to them on the still air. They had cleaned up what the sea had stranded on the spit and had had to go further afield.

From this vantage point they could to some extent make out the lie of the island. It ran nearly west and east and the narrow sand-spit on which they had landed was the extreme western point. Where they stood, the land was about a quarter of a mile in width and it stretched away in front further than they could see, in vast stretches of sand with a line of hummocks all along the northern side. It seemed very narrow, just a long thin wedge of sand, with illimitable gray sea on each side, as far as their eyes could reach. Right ahead, and about a mile away, was a great sheet of water, whether lake or inlet they could not tell. The hummocks ran along its northern side, and a narrow strip of sand divided it from the sea on the south.

"We'd best keep to the ridges," said Macro. "Yon spit on the other side may only end in the sea," so they tramped on along the firm beach on the seaward slope of the line of hummocks, and every now and again climbed up to see what was on the other side. When they found themselves abreast of the sheet of water they went down and found it salt and very shallow. It stretched away in front as far as they could see, but Macro thought he could see more sand hummocks at the far end.

Every here and there, when they climbed the ridge to look over, they came on little basins like their own, comparatively green and populous with rabbits. But never a sign of human life or habitation, not a tree or a shrub, not an animal except the rabbits.

"A God-forsaken hole," was the mate's comment, as they stood, after a couple of hours' trudging, looking out over the interminable ridges in front, and the great unruffled sheet of water below, and the gray slow-heaving sea beyond on both sides, and the gray sky enclosing all.

"There's nought here and never has been. Let's go back and get to work."

"That lake, or inlet, or whatever it is, seems to narrow over there. Suppose we see where it goes to," suggested Wulfrey.

"Only back into sea, I reckon."

However, they tramped on along the beach, and next time they looked over the ridge the land below had broadened out. The water had shrunk to a mere channel which ran, they saw, not into the sea but into a still larger lake beyond, unless it in turn should prove to be a long arm of the sea running all through the middle of the island. They could follow the low sand-spit which divided it from the sea on the south side, and the long line of hummocks on the north, till they faded out of sight in the distance.

Right in front of them spread the largest valley they had yet come across, and the coast ridges ran down into the middle of it and ended in the highest hill they had seen, and between the hill and the lake lay a number of large ponds.

"We must get up there," said Wulfrey.

"No manner o' use," growled the mate, who found tramping through the sand very tiring, and was eager to get back and attack the wreckage for shelter and fire and food and rum.

"Stop you here then, Macro, and I'll go on. If there's anything to see I'll wave my arms. You might skin those rabbits too. I'm beginning to feel empty again."

He struck straight across the valley to the ponds, and was delighted to find them fresh and much better to the taste than their own little pool. Then he climbed the hill, which was not far short of a hundred feet in height. And then Macro, who had been watching him intermittently as he hacked at the rabbits, saw him wave his arms in so excited a fashion that he picked up the rabbits and ran, wondering what new thing he'd found now that set him dancing in that fashion.

And when at last he panted heavily up the yielding side of the hill and saw, he gasped "Gosh!" with all the breath he had left, and sat down open-mouthed and stared as if he could not believe his eyes.

Beyond the end of the valley, the great lake stretched away further than they could see, and in a deep bend on the north side of it lay two ships.

"Schooners, b' Gosh!" jerked Macro, as soon as he could speak; and eyed them intently. "How in name of sin did they get there?" and his eye travelled quickly along the sand-spit that shut out the sea, in search of the break in it through which the schooners must have entered. But no break was visible. Still it might well be that this great inland lake joined the outer sea somewhere over there, beyond their range of sight, and that this was a harbour of refuge, though he had certainly never heard of it before.

"We must find out about 'em," he said at last, and they set off at speed towards the ships to which his eyes seemed glued.

"Not a sign of a man aboard either of 'em," he jerked one time, as he lurched up out of a rabbit-hole. "Nor ashore either."

And to Wulfrey also there was something strange and uncanny in the look of them. The absence of any slightest sign of life anywhere about imparted to them something of a lifeless look also. And their masts were bare of sails, spars, or even cordage, just bare poles sticking up out of the hulls like blighted pine trees. The sea outside had a long slow heave in it, but the water of the lake was smooth as a pond, not a pulse in it, not a ripple on it, and the two little ships lay as motionless as toy boats on a looking-glass sea.

Macro was evidently much exercised in his mind. He never took his eyes off the ships. So intent was he on them that he stumbled in and out of rabbit holes without noticing them, and the "Gosh!" that jerked out of him now and again was provoked entirely by the puzzle of the ships.

So they came at last round the curve of the land and stood opposite the nearer of the two, which lay about a hundred yards out from the shore of bare sand, and neither on ship nor shore nor water had they discovered any sign of life.

"Schooner a-hoy!" bellowed the mate through his funnelled hands. And again. "Schooner a-hoy!"

But no sudden head bobbed up at the hail, and but that they were whole and afloat the ships looked as dead as those others out past the point.

"Gosh, but it's odd!" and he looked quickly both ways along the shore and over his shoulders, as though he feared some odd thing might start up suddenly and take him unawares. "What's it mean?"

"There's no one there. They're deserted."

"Deserted? Man alive! Who'd desert ships afloat like that? What in —— does it mean?" his native fears of the unnatural and inexplicable getting the better of him.

"We'd better go and see," said Wulfrey.

"Swim?"

"I suppose so. I don't expect we can wade."

The mate shook his head. He had evidently no liking for the job, keen as was his desire to get to the bottom of it.

"Let's feed first anyway," he said, and produced the rabbits, which he had held on to in spite of his surprise and many stumblings. So they sat in the sand and ate raw rabbit, with their eyes on the ships all the time.

"They're dead ships like all the rest," was the sum of Macro's conclusions. "But how they got there beats me flat."

"They're afloat anyway and they'll be better to sleep in than the sandhills."

"Ay—mebbe,—if so be's there's no dead men aboard—or ghosts."

"There's no ghosts anyway. If there are any dead men we'll bury them decently and occupy their bunks."

At which the mate gave a shiver of distaste and chewed on in silence.

"Isn't it possible there's an opening to the sea over yonder?" asked Wulfrey, with an eastward jerk of the head.

"Mebbe, but I don't think it. There's no seaweed here, and no move in the water, and no tide-mark. It's dead level. But what if there is?"

"Why, then they might have got in that way, and then some storm blocked the opening and they couldn't get out."

"Mebbe. We can find out by travelling along yon spit till we get to the end of it. I'd liefer do that than go aboard."

"We'll sleep better on board than on the sand."

"Man, ye don't know what ill things may be aboard yon ships! There's a wrong look about 'em," which was undeniable, but still not enough to commend the chill sand to Wulfrey as a resting-place when shelter and possibly bunks might be had on board.

"It seems to me," he said, as they finished their meal, "that it doesn't matter much how they got there. We can perhaps find that out later. There they are, and if they're habitable we want to make use of them. I'm going to swim out to this nearest one and find out what's the matter."

"If you go I go," grumbled the mate uncheerfully.

"It's evident there's no one aboard or anywhere about, and it's absurd to sit here looking at them," said Wulf, and began to peel off his clothes, which had got almost dry with walking. "No good getting them wet again," he explained. "I've been all of a chill for the last five days. I'll fasten them on to my head."

"We'll be coming back."

"We might decide to stop there all night. Better take what's left of the meat."

"Gosh!" with a perceptible shiver of distaste again.

However, he peeled also, and by careful contrivance with belt and braces they bound their bundles on to their heads and stepped into the water.

"Phew! It's cold,—colder than the sea," said Wulfrey through tight-set teeth, as they struck out.

"'Tis that," and the mate's teeth chittered visibly, between the chill of the water and distaste of the adventure.

"Temperature ought to be same ... if sea comes in," sputtered Wulfrey.

"'Tisn't, all same. It's cauld as death."

They ploughed along till they reached the nearer ship, and swam round it in search of entrance, and failing other means laid hold of the rusty anchor-chain, which peeled in ruddy flakes at their touch. By the time Wulf tumbled in over the bows he was streaked from head to foot with iron-mould, and presented so ghastly an appearance that Macro's jaw fell as he came up the side, and he looked half inclined to drop back into the water.

"Man! You look awful. I tuk you for a ghost," he gasped in a whisper.

"You're nearly as bad yourself, but I took the cream of it. Now let us see what's what."

The mate's experienced eye showed him at once that the condition of the ship was not due to storm or accident. She had been deliberately stripped of everything that could be turned to account elsewhere. She was bare as a board,—not a rope nor a spar was left. The hatches were closed and looked as though they had not been touched for years.

They came to the fore-hatch leading down to the fo'c's'le, and he hauled it up with some difficulty and looked suspiciously down into the darkness within.

"Below there!" he cried, in a repressed hollow voice. But only the echoes answered him.

They passed the main-hatch leading to the hold, and went along, past a grated skylight thick with green mould, to the covered gangway leading to the officers' quarters. The doors were closed and bolted with rusty bolts. There could not by any possibility be anyone below, not anyone alive, that is.

Macro wasted no breath here, when they had managed to undo the bolts, but he visibly hesitated. Wulf stepped down into the cabin, and he followed.

Just bare walls, nothing more. Table, stools, lamps, everything movable or unscrewable had been carried away. In the four small rooms adjacent there were just four empty bunks and not a thing besides.

"Gosh, but it's queer!" whispered Macro. "Mebbe they're all lying dead in the hold."

"We'll make sure," and they went up on deck again, and with some labour, for the wood had swelled and stuck, got up the main hatch and dropped down into the hold.

But that was bare like the rest. The ship was as empty as a drum.

"Not so much as a rat, b' Gosh!" said the mate, with recovered spirits, seeing no sign of dead men or ghosts.

"What do you make of it?" asked Wulf.

"She's been stripped bare, that's plain. But why, beats me."

"Anyway, there's no objection to our stopping here now, I suppose. Bare bunks will be drier than the sand over there."

"That's so.... And I'm thinking that if we can bring over some of the stuff from that big pile out yonder we can make ourselves mighty comfortable here."

"We can start on that tomorrow. We've done enough for one day."

"We'll make a raft, like old Robinson Crusoe, and bring the stuff right down to the spit yonder," said Macro, waxing quite cheerful at the prospect. "Then we'll make a smaller raft to bring it aboard here."

"We'd better walk along that spit tomorrow and see if there's any opening to the sea."

"We can do that, but I doubt there's not, else this water wouldn't be so cold, and there'd be some movement in it. It's all dead like everything else."

They spent the rest of the daylight poking into every corner of the ship, and in the dark fo'c's'le Macro made a find of surpassing worth.

He had rooted everywhere, with a natural enjoyment in the process, and come on nothing but bare boards. "But you never know," he said, and went on rooting. And in the blackest corner his foot struck something loose which slid away and eluded him. He went down on his hands and knees and groped till he found it, and then gave a triumphant shout which brought up Wulfrey in haste.

It was a small round metal box such as was used for carrying flint and steel and tinder, well-worn and battered, but tightly closed, and the mate's fingers trembled with anxiety as he opened it with his knife.

"Thanks be!" he breathed deeply, for there in the little battered box lay all the possibilities of fire,—warmth, cooked food, life—all complete.

And—"Thank God!" said Wulfrey also. "That's the best find yet."

"If it'll work it's worth its weight in Guinea gold. But it's old, old," and he poked the tinder doubtfully with his finger, "as old as the ship, and that's older than you or me, I'm thinking. It's dropped out of some old pocket and rolled out of sight. We do have the deil's own luck."

"Providence!" said Wulfrey. "Can't we make a fire and roast some rabbit? I'm sick of raw meat."

"Where'd we make it? Galley-stove's gone with all the rest, and galley too for that matter.... Wouldn't do to set the ship afire.... There's only one safe way. Soon as we've got a bit of a raft together we'll bring over sand enough to make a fire-bed in the hold. Then we can roast all the rabbits in the island."

"What about the cover of the big hatchway there? Wouldn't that carry one of us and sand enough."

"Might. And there's wood enough and to spare in the skin of her down below. But it'll be dark in an hour."

"Come on. Let's get it overboard. I'll go. Can you rip up a board for a paddle?"

The hatch-cover was slightly domed and had four-inch coamings all round, and when let upside down on to the water made a sufficiently effective raft for light freight. Macro dropped down into the hold and ripped up a board and jumped it into pieces, and Wulfrey lowered himself gingerly down on to his frail craft and set off for the shore, with roast rabbit in his face.

"Ye'll have to look smart or ye'll be in the dark," Macro called after him, as he leaned over the side watching his clumsy progression.

"Ay, ay! I'll shout if I get lost," and the mate went down to break up firewood and shred filmy shavings in default of sulphur sticks.

Wulfrey, wafting slowly ashore, lighted on a colony of rabbits intent on supper, and was able to capture a couple in their panic rush for their holes. Then he hastily loaded his float with all the sand it could safely carry and set off again for the ship in great content of mind.

The transfer of his cargo to the deck of the ship was a much more difficult and precarious job than getting it alongside. He tried throwing it up in handfuls, but that proved slow work and more than once came near to spilling him overboard. And finally, as the night was upon them, he took off his coat and sent up larger parcels in it; and so at last Macro cried enough, and having shown him how to wedge his float in between the rusty anchor-chain and the bows, so that the wind should not drift it away in the night, he helped him up over the side.

It was an anxious moment when the first sparks shredded down into the ancient tinder. But they caught and glowed, and with tenderest coaxing lighted the mate's carefully-prepared matches, and these the chips, and these the faggots, and the mighty cheer and joy of fire were theirs.

They slept that night in great comfort, replete with roasted meat, roofed from winds and dew, and grateful both, each in his own way, for the marvellous encouragement of this first day on the island.

Though their beds were but bare boards, they had no fault to find with them, but slept like tops. And Macro's black head was so full of the wonderful possibilities of that vast pile of wastry out beyond the point, in conjunction with this amazing find of the ships, that there was no room left in it for any thought of ghosts or evil spirits.

XIX

Over their last night's fire they had made provision of roast meat for breakfast, and after it they paddled precariously across to the other schooner, a couple of hundred yards away, and explored it thoroughly. But it was in exactly the same condition as their own, so they closed all the hatches again and then, after a short discussion, decided to leave the solution of the puzzle of the ships for the present and devote the day to the salvage of any necessaries they could discover among the wreckage.

They paddled across to the southern spit which divided the lake from the sea, and found it a bare hundred yards in width, and at its highest point not more than ten feet above high-water level. They walked briskly along the side of the narrow channel that joined the two lakes, on past the first one, and in a couple of hours reached the sandy point where they had landed two days before. Out above the piles of wreckage the gray cloud of sea-birds swung and whirled, and their shrill screamings rose and fell with the varied fortunes of their quest.

"Screeching deevils!" was the mate's comment on them, and presently, "It'll be a long pull back with a log of a raft. It must be six or seven miles, I reckon."

"Perhaps we'll strike a boat among the wreckage."

"Ah—p'r'aps. We do have the deil's own luck."

It was almost dead low water. The storm of the previous days seemed to have exhausted the elements for the time being. The sea was smooth, with no more movement than the long slow heave which curled, as it neared the shore, into great green and white combers of exquisite beauty, rushing up the beaches in a dapple of marbled foam, and back into the bosom of the next comer with a long-drawn sibilant hiss.

There was a soft south-west wind and even a cheering touch of the sun, and as their work was like to be of the wettest, and dry clothes were a luxury, they left them above tide-level and went out stripped to the fight, their only weapon the mate's sailor's-knife in the belt which he buckled round his waist. But, in view of the screeching deevils already in possession, they forethoughtfully armed themselves with the weightiest clubs they could pick out of the raffle of the beach. For in that countless predatory host, although its components were but birds, there was menace passing words. It made them feel bare and vulnerable, and Macro cursed them heartily as he went.

They reached the pile without any difficulty, and the mate's keen eye raked round for the likeliest stuff for a raft. It was no good acquiring cargo till they had a craft to carry it.

There was no lack of timber, however, and cordage was to be had for the cutting, and with these the skilled hands of the seaman soon constructed a raft large enough for their utmost probable requirements. Then he turned with gusto to the more satisfying joys of plunder, and developed new and startling sides to his character.

Wulf laughed, but found him surprising, as the cateran spirit of his forebears came uppermost with this tremendous opportunity.

He climbed up and down and in and out of the high-piled wreckage like a hungry tiger, bashed in boxes and cases with a huge club of mahogany which had once adorned the cabin-staircase of a ship, and raked over their contents with the avidious claws of a wrecker of the evil coasts. Now and again strange ejaculations broke from him. More than once, in the wild glee of pillage and unexpected booty, he shouted snatches of weird runes and chanties which Wulf supposed were Gaelic. At times he stood and shook his fist at the screaming birds that swooped about him, and cursed them volubly. And once, Wulfrey, on the raft below, knitted his brows and watched him with doubtful perplexity as, in the disappointment of his hopes respecting one great case which had resisted his efforts and finally yielded nothing of consequence, he attacked another with shouts of fury and a Berserk madness that scattered chips and splinters far and wide. An incautious cormorant swooped by him. With a stroke he sent it spinning, a bruised and broken bundle of feathers, and it fell with a dull flop into the sea.

The man seemed demented, drunk with a rage for plunder and the destruction of everything that stood between him and it. His great club whirled, and the blows flailed here and there without any apparent regard to direction. The lust of slaughter and demolishment burst from him in volcanic fire and fury. For the moment he had reverted to his elemental type.

To the cooler head below he looked dangerous. Wulfrey's amused amazement gave place to doubt and a touch of anxiety. He could only hope that his companion was not often subject to fits such as this.

But the Berserk madness was not wholly without method, and presently plunder of all kinds came raining down on the raft.

Heralded by a sharp "Below there!" came a roll of linen and one of woollen cloth, a bale of blankets, more rolls,—this time of silk and satin and velvet, all more or less damaged by the sea, though they were the pick and cream of his salvaging, and all no doubt dryable.

"Good heavens! What does he want with these?" thought Wulfrey, but piled them up obediently.

Then, following the unmistakable course of the marauder up above, and clawing the raft along to keep in touch with him, down came on his head a bulging little sack, which felt like beans but proved to be coffee, and presently, after a pause, necessitated by packing arrangements up above, a series of soft bundles made up in crimson silk and tied with slimy rope.

Then, after another pause punctuated by shouts and crashes, down came a rattling heap of rusty cooking utensils all slung together with more slimy rope, a rusty axe, four broken oars. Till at last the raft became so crowded that there was barely standing room left on it.

"Steady, above there! We're full up. I can't take another pound, and I doubt if we can get this all home safely."

"Just this, man!" and Macro appeared up above with a small keg in his arms, and let himself and it carefully down on to the raft, with every appearance of a return to sanity.

"Man!" he said, with the afterglow of it all still in his face. "That was fine. We'll come again."

"We've got to get all these things home first."

"Easy that. This wind'll carry us fine," and he set to work with a couple of the broken oars and a blanket, and contrived a sail of sorts. Then, taking another oar and thrusting one into Wulfrey's hands, he propelled the clumsy raft along the side of the wreckage till it got clear, and the wind caught their sail and wafted them slowly towards the island.

"A grand grand place, yon!" he broke out again.

"There's stuff enough there to load a hundred ships.... Gosh, I've forgotten the pork!" and he uprooted the sail and began paddling back to the wreckage. "I stove in the head of a barrel and was smelling at it when I spied the wee keg."

"Was it eatable?"

"I've eaten worse."

"Couldn't we get it next trip?"

"Man, my stomach's been crying for it ever since I set eyes on it. 'Sides, those deevils of birds will finish it in no time. See them! They're at it now. Och, ye greedy deevils!"

He clambered up the pile with his oar and laid about him lustily, The birds rose up from the meat like a dense cloud of flies, and screamed and raved at him, and swooped at him with vicious eyes and beaks and claws, so that in a moment he became the centre of a writhing, fluttering, shrieking mass which threatened to annihilate him completely.

He flailed blindly at them with his oar, smashing them by dozens. But they were too many for him. He shouted for help, and when Wulfrey scrambled up he found him in very sore case, fighting blindly and streaming with blood.

"Come away, man!" shouted Wulfrey, and thrashed away at the nightmare of whirling birds. "Come away before they end us!" and in a moment he found himself the centre of a similar shrieking mass, dazed and blinded with their numbers and their fury. The terrified glimpse he got of their cold glittering eyes and gnashing beaks, and the compressed venom of their overwhelming assault, were too much for him. It was like fighting single-handed against all the fiends out of the pit.

He hurled his oar overboard, put up his arms to protect his eyes, and staggered to the edge of the pile, acutely conscious of jags and pecks and rips innumerable on his bare arms and shoulders. As he flung himself down into the water and dived under, a plunge alongside told him that Macro had done the same. A raucous swarm of birds followed them, but on their disappearance fluttered off to more visible chances above.

"Man! but that was awful!" gasped the mate hoarsely. "They nigh ate me alive."

"Let's get aboard or they'll be at us again. There's my oar," and he swam quietly to it and they climbed back on to the raft.

"An' never ae piece o' pork," lamented Macro. "The poaching deevils!"

"Be thankful you're alive, man! It was a close touch that."

"'Twas that. I'm bit all over. I'd like to end 'em all with one crack."

Fortunately the birds were too busy quarrelling up above to give them more than cursory attention. A few came whirling and swooping after them with greedy eyes and ravening beaks. But it was only in their multitudes that they were formidable and they soon gave up a chase that offered no easy prey.

The men, shaken and trembling, clawed along the pile till they caught the wind again, when Macro readjusted his masts and sail, and they drifted slowly back towards the island.

"Ye deevils! Ye scratching, scrawming, skelloching deevils!" breathed Macro deeply, every now and again, and shook his fist at the twisting column of birds behind. "I wish ye had ae neck and me ma hond on it."

Their weighty progress was of the slowest. When they drew alongside the yellow spit Macro plunged overboard and waded ashore for their clothes, and they drifted on along the low southern beach. But it was well after mid-day before they came abreast of the stark little ships which stood to them for home.

Then they made busy traffic transporting their salvage to the shore and carrying it across the bank to the edge of the lake. And when that was all done Macro unlashed the raft and they carried it over piece by piece, and roughly put it together there and loaded up again.

"It'll all come in for firing," said the mate. "We can't go on burning our own inside all the time."

It was no easy work propelling their rough craft with broken oars. Moreover Macro insisted on taking the hatch-cover in tow. But the spirit of accomplishment was upon them and the weight they dragged was a comforting one.

All the way, as they joggled slowly along, the mate never ceased enlarging on the wonders of the wreckage, nor forgot his one disappointment, which evoked resentful curses each time he thought of it.

"Man, but we're doing fine! A roof we've got, and fire, and things to eat.—There's flour in yon bundles,—just the cores of half a dozen casks. And yon bag's coffee, but we'll need to roast it and grind it. And the wee keg's rum, unless I've mistook it. An' there's enough stuff out yonder to last us for a thousand years. But, blankety-blank-blank-blank!—my stomach's crying after yon pork that them screeching deevils took out of our mouths, as you might say. Blankety-blank-blank 'em all—every red-eyed son o' the pit among 'em! But we'll try again, and next time I'll not broach the barr'l an' they'll know noth'n about it."

"Maybe they'll attack us all the same. It was the most horrible situation I was ever in. One felt so utterly helpless."

"Ay, blank 'em! There was no end to 'em.... They'd have ate me alive if you hadn't come and helped me tumble overboard. Blank 'em! Blank 'em! Blank 'em!"

"What on earth are all these things for?" asked Wulfrey one time, kicking a roll of crimson silk with his heel.

"Blankets to sleep on,—better than boards. The others for their gay gaudery,—the bonny reid and blue o' them. They mek me feel good and warm just to look at 'em. I just couldna leave them. Man, they're grand!"

They hoisted all their stuff on board, and found themselves hungry and thirsty with the heavy day's work. There were but the scantiest remnants of their breakfast left, and Macro undertook to chop wood and make a fire, scour some of the rusty cooking-utensils, and make flour-and-water cakes as soon as he had some water, if Wulfrey would go across for it and some fresh meat.

So he set off on the hatch-cover with a good-sized kettle, and was back inside an hour with water from the ponds by the hill and a couple of young rabbits, and found that the mate had not been idle. He had transferred a sufficiency of sand to the cabin to make a hearth at the foot of the steps, and had broken up wood enough to last for a week. He had spread out all the blankets, scoured most of the rust off a frying-pan and a small kettle and a couple of tin pannikins, and had opened the keg and sampled its contents and found it French cognac of excellent quality.

In the best of spirits he skinned the rabbits and set them roasting, with an incidental commination of thae screeching deevils that had robbed them of the pork which would have been such a welcome accompaniment. Then he compounded cakes of flour and water and fried them deftly, and set a kettle to boil wherewith to make hot grog, and boastfully promised coffee for the morrow when he had time to roast and grind it.

They both ate ravenously, and found great content in the taste of hot food and drink once more, after all these days of clammy starvation, and then they slept. And Wulfrey dreamed horribly all night of fighting helplessly with legions of screeching birds, and several times fought himself awake, and each time found Macro actively engaged in the same unprofitable business.

XX

In spite of his torn shoulders and unrestful night, Macro was for setting off again first thing next morning for more plunder. That huge pile of wastry drew him like a magnet. He hungered and thirsted to be at it again.

But Wulfrey flatly refused. They had enough to go on with, and he claimed at least a day to recover from the effects of the last excursion. And as Macro declined to tackle the job single-handed he was fain to agree, though with none too good a grace.

"This weather mayn't last. We'd best get all we can while we can," he urged.

"The stuff will be there tomorrow. Most of it's been there for years, you said."

"Ay, but man, there's mebbe things out of the 'Grassadoo,' that'll be spoiling for want of finding."

"They'll not spoil much more in one day. You're more used to this kind of work than I am, you see. I must have a rest."

Macro consigned rest to the bottomless pit, but after relieving his feelings in that way, consented at last to an easy-going exploration of the southern spit, to see if their lake opened into the sea, though he expressed himself satisfied, from his observations, that it did not.

First, however, out of the larger raft he constructed a smaller one, which bore them better than the hatch-cover and was more manageable, and the hatch they hauled on board again and fitted into its place, so as to keep the ship dry in case of bad weather. Then they paddled across to the spit and set off along it, both scrutinising the lie of the land carefully.

For a good hour they trudged through heavy sand, the sea swirling with long soft hisses up the yellow beach on their right hand, and on their left the placid water of the lake without a pulse in it. The dividing bank was nowhere in all its length more than a hundred yards wide, nor more than ten feet high at its crown.

More than once Macro stood and studied it in places, and when in time they came to long ridges of hummocks which stretched as far in front as they could see, he stood again, looking back from the top of the first they climbed, and said, "I'm thinking there's no opening this end. Mebbe it was on the level there. But this stuff shifts so in a gale you never know where you are."

Presently they came on the shallow rounded end of the lake, with higher sandhills beyond it, which ran along both sides of the island further than they could see. In between lay a vast unbroken stretch of level sand, and when they climbed to the top of the highest hill, they saw this sandy desert dwindle in the far distance to a point, with the sea on each side of it, like the one at the other end of the island.

"There's not a sign of anybody else," said Wulfrey.

"If there'd been anyone they'd bin living on them ships. We've got it all to ourselves, that's certain. And what's more, we'll have it all to ourselves till Kingdom come. No one else'll ever come, 'cept dead men."

"Those two ships came."

"Twenty, thirty years ago,—mebbe more. Must have bin an opening then and it's got silted up. They couldn't have got washed over the spit."

There were several more large fresh-water ponds close to these larger hills, and rabbits everywhere. They secured a couple and tramped back the way they had come.

Macro seemed to accept the whole situation and outlook with the utmost equanimity. They had very much more than they had had any right to expect; more was always to be had for the fetching from that wonderful pile out yonder; what that pile might yield in the way of richer plunder remained to be seen, and he was the man to see to it.

But Wulfrey had been cherishing a hope that the great lake would prove an inlet from the sea, a harbour of refuge into which other ships might be expected to run at times. And the fact that it was not, that no relief was to be looked for in that direction and that this desolate sandbank, bristling with wrecks, must necessarily be shunned by all who knew of it, weighed more and more heavily on him as he thought about it.

They were alive, where all their shipmates had perished. They were provided for beyond their utmost expectation. For all that he was most deeply grateful. But the prospect of passing the rest of his life on this bare bank troubled him profoundly and reduced him to silence and the lowest of spirits.

XXI

They woke next morning into a dense white fog, so thick that they could not see across the deck. Macro, intent on plunder, hailed it as an excellent screen from possible attack by the other pillagers of the wreck-pile, and though Wulfrey had his doubts, he would not counter him again.

His knowledge of human nature suggested to him the almost impossibility of two men living alone, in intimacy so close and exclusive, and with so little outlet for their thoughts and energies, without coming to loggerheads at times. He determined that, so far as in him lay, the provocation thereto should not come from him.

So far he had not only had nothing to complain of in his companion's presence, but, on the contrary, had found himself distinctly the gainer by it in every material way. But the strange wild outbursts, to which he had given vent when they were at the wreckage before, warned him of hidden fires below, and suggested the advisability of non-provocation of the under-man, if it were possible to avoid it.

So they paddled across to the spit, which they could not well miss, and set off on foot for the point, steering by the sullen lap and hiss of the waves as they stole softly up out of the fog on their left hand. There was a clamminess in the air which commended the idea of clothes to them while they worked on the pile. So they made their things into tight bundles, and carried them above their heads as they waded out neck-deep to their store-house. The shrill cries of the birds came dull and thin through the fog, more ghostly than ever from their invisibility. Now and again an inquisitive straggler fluttered down at them out of the close white curtain, and whirled back into it with a terrified squawk when it found they were alive.

They climbed the pile cautiously, but the birds seemed mostly at a distance; and when they had flung down sufficient timber Macro proceeded to construct another raft, while Wulfrey poked about up above on his own account.

And as he climbed about among the chaotic mass of barrels, boxes, cases, bales, he came to understand the wild craving to get at them, to bash them open and learn what they contained, which had possessed the mate that other day. There might be anything hidden there—goods of all kinds for the easement of their present situation. There might even be treasure of gold and jewels. It was impossible to say what there might not be. And though gold and jewels were absolutely useless to them, placed as they were, and with no prospect, according to Macro, of rescue or relief, the possibility of such things lying hidden in untold quantity all about him stirred him strangely.

He recognised feelings so abnormal to himself with no little surprise. He felt as a penniless small boy might feel if he were given the freedom of a great shop full of boxed-up toys and told to help himself. He wanted to smash open very closed case he came to, to see what was inside it.

The water lapped and clunked dismally in the hollows below, and at times he had to climb almost down to it, and then up the further side, to get across faults in the pile. In one such black gully, on what was usually the leeward side of the pile, he had stepped cautiously from ledge to ledge, and laid hold of a projecting spar and was hauling himself up the other side, when he came face up against a dark little cranny between two great cases. And in the niche sat the skeleton of a man, all huddled up and jammed together, but grinning at him in so ferociously jovial a manner, as though he had been expecting him and was rejoiced at the sight of him, that Wulfrey came near to loosing his hold and falling into the water. He scrambled hastily past, and saw grinning faces in every dark corner for the rest of the day, and some of them were fact and some were only fancy. For the tumbled pile of wreckage was like a huge trap for the catching of anything the sweeping gales might bring it.

He heard Macro's voice, dulled by the mist, calling to him, and he answered but knew not which way to go to get to him. It was only by constant shouting and long and precarious scrambling that they came together again.

"We'd best keep close in this fog," said the mate, "or one of us'll be stopping the night here. Found anything?"

"A dead man——"

"Any of ours?"

"No, he was only bones."

"It's full of 'em. They're no canny, but they'll not harm us. Where'll we begin?"

"One place is as good as another. Here, I should say, and quietly, or those fiends of birds will be at us again."

"Bear a hand with this, then," laying hold of a newly-stranded barrel. "That's pork out of the 'Grassadoo,' so it'll be all right," and heaving and hauling, they managed to get the barrel down on to the raft.

As they poked about the pile in the mist, it was evident they had struck a spot where a good portion of the contents of the 'Grace-à-Dieu' had lodged. Macro, having superintended the loading, recognised many of the marks and in some instances could recall their contents.

"Women's fallals," he said, with a scornful crack at one large case. "If they'd been men's, now, they'd have come in handy.... Boots and shoes, if I remember rightly,"—nodding at another case. "We'll soon see," and with a chunk of wood he stove in one side and hauled out a handful of its contents.—"Women's troke again! Mebbe we'll find some men's stuff in time.... I've seen yon chest before.... Old Will Taggart's, I think," and he stove it open, and went down on his knees and raked over the contents. "Seaman's slops, not much account.... A new pipe and a tin of tobacco! Thanks be! We'll take that ... and another flint and steel. Always useful! ... Clothes not much good, but we might be glad of 'em later on.... Yon's a box of tea and it'll be lead-lined inside. Should be more about. We had two hunderd aboard.... Glory! yon barrels are hard-tack. These ones are flour. If we work hard and get 'em ashore before the weather breaks again we'll live in clover.... What's this now? ... 'Duke of Kent'"—and he hauled up a stout wooden box by one handle out of a raffle of cordage and ragged sail-cloth. "Name of a ship—or name of a man? That's no a ship's box."

A deft blow under the lock and the box lay open, displaying a number of uniforms, richly decorated with gold braid and lacing, all more or less damaged by water, but otherwise in good condition.

"Duds enough to keep us going for a couple of years if so be as they fit," said the mate exuberantly, and Wulfrey laughed out at the idea of their peacocking about their sandbank rigged out in court costumes.

"He was Governor-General of Canada," he said. "I remember hearing he lost his baggage on the journey."

"We'll be Governor-Generals here when we're needing a change.... Nothing but his clothes," as he ran his hands all over the box. "Mebbe we'll find more of 'em lying about. Man! what a place it is! It'd take a man a lifetime to work through all the stuff there is here."

They worked hard and carried home a huge load, but as there was no wind they had to paddle all the way, and even Macro acknowledged to being a bit tired before they got all their plunder across the spit and on board, the transit across the lake on the smaller raft necessitating three separate journeys. He was in the highest of spirits however, and keen to be back at the pile next day. As for Wulfrey, hardening though he was with all these unusual labours, he found himself almost too weary to eat.

The fog lay on them like a white pall for six days. Macro predicted that it would go in a storm, and was urgent on salvaging all they could before it came.

So, day after day, they went out to the pile, and came back loaded at night till they had stuff enough in their hold to keep them in comfort for many months to come.

They had meat and drink, clothes and firing, and comfortable quarters. What more could any man want, unless it were to get away from it all? And that, the mate asserted, time after time, was the unlikeliest thing that could happen.

"We're here till Kingdom come," was the burden of his tune. "So we may as well be comfortable. And we've had the deil's own luck. We might ha' been living on rabbits and roots, and sleeping on the sand. Man! be thankful at being tired to such good purpose!"

"I'm thankful enough and tired enough, and we've got stuff enough for a year. I'm going to take a rest."

"I'm for the pile again tomorrow. If you won't come I'll e'en make shift alone," and Wulfrey let him go alone.

XXII

The smothering white fog lay thick on them for six days and then disappeared in the night. The morning broke dull and heavy, with a gusty wind from the south-west, and they could hear the waves breaking on the spit with a sound like the low growl of a menacing beast.

"I'm off to the pile," said the mate.

"Better take a day off. You've been working too hard."

"Not me. I cannot sit here while all yon stuff's crying aloud to be picked up."

"Well, I'll be on the look-out, and come across to give you a hand from the spit when you get there."

"I'll lash you up a bit float that'll bring you over, before I go. And you'll mebbe have some food ready against I get back. It's hungry work out there."

"I'll be ready for you. If you load up too heavily you'll not get back at all."

"I'll see to that. Wind's fair, it'll bring me home all right."

So Wulfrey had the day to himself, and had time, which the labours of the previous days had not permitted him, to consider the situation in all its aspects.

So far they had been marvellously favoured, without doubt. Ten days ago they were swinging up and down on the galley-roof inside the cage of the dead ship's ribs, possessed of nothing but their bare lives, and those but doubtfully. And here they were, provided for in every respect, with comforts which shipwrecked men had no right to expect, and with unlimited further stores to draw upon. They could live without fear....

But what a life, after all. Eating, drinking, sleeping,—raking over the wreckage for possible plunder that was useless to them,—rambling among the rabbits and the sandhills. Quarrelling in time, maybe. Perhaps it was a good thing there was a ship for each of them.

He was not himself of a quarrelsome disposition. The mate, he thought, might be difficult to put up with if he took a crooked turn. But it would be the height of folly for two men, bound together by ill-fortune, and to this bare bank for all time, to fall out. Every circumspection within his power he resolved to exercise, and so far, indeed, his companion had given him no cause to mistrust or doubt him.