BOOK III

BONE OF CONTENTION

XXIV

They had been three months on the island, and in all that time had

never sighted a living ship, though the remains of newly-dead ones were

never wanting after bad weather.

It was evident that the men of the sea avoided Sable Island as if it

were a pestilence, and came there only when it no longer mattered to

them whether they came there or not.

Macro was, by degrees and with never-lessening enjoyment, amassing a

very considerable treasure. If ever the chance of getting back to land

arrived, and he could get his plunder home, he would have no need to

follow the sea for the rest of his life. But, whether or not that

crowning good fortune should ever be his, this gathering of spoil was a

huge satisfaction to the very soul of him, and he desired no better.

The only flies in his big honey-pot were those rival depredators the

birds. He had many a battle royal with them, and came home at times

scratched and clawed and furiously comminative, consigning birds of all

shapes and sizes to everlasting perdition. Spirits or no spirits, in

the day time, and in the prosecution of his work, he would fight them

valiantly or trick them cleverly.

But in the black storms that swept over them at times, when the great

waves crashed like thunder on the spit, and the sandhills and hummocks

melted away under Wulfrey's wondering eyes and built themselves afresh

in new places, when the shrieking hosts came whirling round the ship

and the sky was full of their raucous clamour, then the darkness came

on Macro and he fell again to his seuns, and knew them, beyond all

doubt, for things of evil.

When the odds out there on the wreck-pile were too much for him, he

learned by experience how to fool them. He would smash furiously at

them with his club, shouting in wild exultation as the bashed bodies

went tumbling into the sea. If that did not discourage them, and their

venom persisted, he would drop quietly into some adjacent hole amid the

wreckage where they could not get at him, and wait there till they

whirled away after easier prey.

So keen was he on adding to his store that, when their commissariat

needed replenishing, Wulfrey found it necessary to accompany him and to

insist on his attending strictly to this more important business, or at

times they would have gone short. For the rest, Wulfrey left him to

the satisfaction of his cravings and interfered with him not at all.

One memorable morning, which broke sweet and clear after two days of

stress and storm, the mate set off as usual to find what the gods had

sent him; and Wulf, leaning over the side, watched him paddle across to

the spit, and land there, and stride away towards the western point

from which they always waded out to the wreckage.

But on this occasion, before he disappeared in the distance, he stopped

and stood looking out over the sea, and the next moment Wulfrey saw him

wading out towards something which only caught his eye when thus

directed to it,--something which bobbed up and down among the waves

with a glint of white at times.

He saw Macro reach it and lift his arms in a gesture of amazement.

Then he bent over it and presently came staggering back up the shore

bearing a white burden over his shoulder. It looked at that distance

so very like a body that Wulfrey tumbled over on to his raft, and

paddled across to the spit, and ran along the shore to where the mate

was kneeling now alongside his find.

It was the body of a woman, pallid and sodden, with her long dark hair

all astream, her white face pinched and shrunken and blue-veined, with

dark hollows round the closed eyes, and colourless lips slightly

retracted showing even, white teeth. She was clothed only in a long

white nightdress, which the water had so moulded to her shapely figure

that it looked like a piece of fair white marble sculpture. In life

she must have been beautiful, Wulfrey thought, as he stood panting, and

gazed down upon her.

"Dead?" he jerked.

"Ay, sure! She were lashed to yonder spar and I couldna leave her

there.... The pity of it! She's been a fine bit."

Wulfrey knelt down, and slipped his hand to the quiet heart,

instinctively but without hope, bent closer, gently raised one of the

closed eyelids, and said hastily, "There may be a chance. Help me back

home with her! Quick! You take her feet...." and he taking her under

the arms they hurried back along the spit.

"She is not dead from drowning anyway," he jerked as they went. "The

exposure may have killed her.... She must have suffered dreadfully."

It was no easy task to get her on board, but they managed it somehow,

and laid her gently among the blankets in Wulfrey's bunk.

"Now.... Bags of hot sand, as quick as you can and as many.... Then

mix some hot rum and water--not too strong,"--and Macro found himself

springing to his orders with an alacrity which would have surprised him

if he had had time to think about it.

Wulfrey, his professional instincts at highest pressure, drew off the

clinging garment, muffled the sea-bitten white body in the blankets,

and through them set to gentle vigorous rubbing, to start the chilled

blood flowing again.

Macro came hurrying in with hot sand from the hearth, wrapped in linen

and tied with strands of untwisted rope.

"Good! ... As many more as you can," said the Doctor, and placed them

against the cold, blue-white feet, and rubbed away for dear life.

By degrees he packed her all round with hot sand-bags, Macro heating

them as fast as they cooled, in a frying-pan over the fire. He placed

them under her arms and between her shoulders, and never ceased his

vigorous friction except to renew the bags.

Each time the mate came in, his face asked news, and each time Wulfrey

shook his head and said, "Not yet," and went on with his rubbing. His

own blood was at fever-heat with his exertions in that confined space.

But that was all the better. His superfluous warmth might transmit

itself in time to the chill white body of his patient.

Macro came in with hot rum and water, and Wulfrey poured a few careful

drops between the still-livid lips, watched the result anxiously, and

followed them up with more, and then resumed his patient rubbing.

For over an hour they worked incessantly, and then Macro was for giving

it up as hopeless.

"'S no good. She's gone, sure," he said.

"I don't think so.... Too soon to give up anyway," and the Doctor

worked on tirelessly. "If she should come round----"

"She won't."

"--She'll be starving. You might break up some hard-tack very small

and warm it up in some weak rum and water," and he went on with his

rubbing.

And at last, when he had almost given up hope himself, he had his

reward. The mate, poking in a head deprecatory of further waste of

time and energy on so hopeless a job, stood staring amazedly. For the

pinched dead look of the pitiful white face had given place to a faint

presage of life, like the first flutter of dawn on the pallid darkness

of the night. Death had visibly relaxed his chill grip. There was a

tinge of colour in the parted lips, and the white teeth inside had come

together.

"She lives," said Wulfrey softly. "Her heart is at work again. Warm

up that rum and water," and when it came he administered it cautiously

in drops again, and this time they were visibly swallowed.

"Have the warm mash ready," he said; and even as he spoke the

blue-veined lids fluttered, but so feebly as hardly to lift the long

dark lashes from the white cheeks. And through that narrowed window

the recovered soul looked mistily out on life once more.

He gave her still a little more hot rum and water, and when the warm

mashed biscuit came fed her slowly with that, and she swallowed it

hungrily if unconsciously.

Then, well satisfied with his work, he piled more blankets on her and

left her to herself.

He had had many a fight with death, but none closer than this. The

snatching of a life from the cold hand that was closing on it was

always a cause for rejoicing with him. And this life, by reason of its

comely tenement, had appealed to him in quite an unusual way.

Who she was, and what manner of woman, was still to be learned. For

the moment it was enough that she had been within an ace of death and

was alive again, and that she was unusually good to look upon.

XXV

When the Doctor had had a plunge overboard to restore the vitality he

had expended on his patient, they sat down to eat, and the mate was

inclined to enlarge somewhat exuberantly on the morning's work,--upon

his own share in it especially.

"A wonderful fine piece of goods for any man to drag out of the water.

I'm doubting if you'd have seen her if you'd bin there, Doctor. Just

happened to lift my eye that way, and the white of her caught it, and

in I went. Not that I thought she could be living, you understand.

She felt like Death itself when I carried her ashore in my arms----"

"She'll be distressed for lack of clothes when she's ready to get up.

But that won't be to-day anyway. Do you think you can light on any out

yonder?"

"Lit on some last time I was there, but left 'em 'cause they were no

use to us. That lot'll mebbe be gone, but there's plenty more for the

finding. I'll see to it to-morrow."

"She will be grateful to you, I'm sure."

"She should, for if it hadn't bin for me she'd be tumbling about on yon

spar still, and dead by this time, I'm thinking."

"She couldn't have stood much more, that's certain. I was near losing

hope myself at times."

"Wouldn't have believed she'd ever come back if I hadn't seen it. It's

being a doctor made ye keep on so."

"One feels bound to keep on while there's a possible chance left. In

this case one couldn't but feel that there was a chance, if only a

small one. We've done a good day's work to-day."

"Ay," said the mate, and presently, "I'm thinking I'll go out there

today to get her some clothes. They'll need a lot of drying, you see."

"Can you do it before dark?"

"I'll do it. Ye'll see to her."

"I'll see to her all right. A little more food and then the longer she

sleeps the better. If she'd lie where she is for a couple of days it

would be all to the good."

"Then I'll go," but he came back to bend down into the little

companion-way and say, "If she's asking, ye'll tell her it was me

pulled her out the water."

"I'll tell her."

When, presently, Wulfrey went to see how she was going on, he found her

sleeping quietly the sleep of utter exhaustion, and as he stood looking

at her it seemed to him that she grew more beautiful each time he saw

her.

The long wet tresses, whose clamminess he had carefully disposed behind

the rolled-up blankets which served as a pillow, were drying to a deep

warm brown. As they carried her in he had thought her hair was black.

It was very thick and long. The texture of her skin, now that the

coursing blood had obliterated to some extent the pinch and the bite of

the sea, was fine and delicate, he could see, though suffering still

from the salt.

The pink fingers of one hand had pulled down the blankets round her

neck as though she had craved more air, and the soft white neck was

smooth and white as marble. The one ear turned towards him was like a

delicate little pink shell.

All these things he noted before his gaze settled on the quiet sleeping

face, and lingered there with a strange new sense of joyous discovery

and unexpected increase, as one might feel who suddenly unearths a

hidden treasure.

He wondered again who she was and whence she came. Of gentle birth, he

was sure. It showed in every feature of the placid face,--in the

strong sweet curves of a not too small mouth,--in the delicately-turned

nostrils,--in the soft level brows,--in the long fringing lashes which,

with the shadows left by her sharp encounter with Death, cast about her

closed eyes a misty enchantment full of witchery and allurement. He

wondered what colour her eyes would be when they opened.

A wide white forehead, somewhat high cheek-bones, and a round

well-moulded chin, added a fine dignity to the sleeping face. He stood

so long gazing at its all-unconscious fascination that he feared at

last lest the very earnestness of his look might disturb her.

So he picked up her only earthly possession, and leaving her, sleeping

soundly, in sole charge of the ship, paddled across to the nearer

shore, washed the salt out of her dainty single garment in a

fresh-water pool, and spread it in the sun to dry, and then went after

rabbits for her benefit when she should waken ravenous.

Returned on board, after a glance at his still-sleeping patient,--who

lay so motionless that, but for the slight, slow rise and fall of the

blankets over her bosom, one might have deemed her dead,--he set to the

making of as tempting a soup as rabbit and rice could furnish, and

regretted, more sorely than ever before, his lack of salt and seasoning.

Then he sat waiting for her to awake and for Macro to come home. If

she did not wake of her own accord before sunset he decided to wake her

himself. Sleep was without doubt the best of all restoratives, but

Nature craves sustenance, and she was almost certainly starving. She

would recover strength more quickly still if her system had something

to draw upon.

Then, too, they had no light but that of the fire. If she woke up in

the dark she would be sorely exercised in her mind to know where she

had got to. It would be better to satisfy her, mentally and bodily,

while still there was daylight to see by.

So, when the sun shone level through the western portholes, he went

softly to where she lay, still sleeping soundly, and after watching her

again for a moment, he placed his hand gently on her forehead.

She frowned at the touch and moved uneasily among her blankets. Then

the heavy eyes opened and she lay staring wonderingly up at him,

evidently trying to piece past and present together, and to make out

where she was.

"Where am I? ... Who are you?" she jerked, in a voice that would have

been rich and full if it had not been a little hoarse and husky. And

the pink fingers grasped the blanket and drew it up under the rounded

white chin.

"You are quite safe on a ship. I am a doctor. I want you to eat some

warm soup and then you shall sleep again as long as you can. Here is

your night-rail, washed and dried; perhaps you would like to put it on.

I will go and fetch the soup."

When he came back presently she was visibly more at ease with her

frills about her neck. She raised herself on her left elbow, and he

placed the tin pannikin of soup in front of her, together with some

broken biscuit.

"Can you feed yourself?" he asked.

"Oh, yes--if I had a spoon."

"I am sorry to say we have no spoons."

"No spoons?" and she stared at him in vast surprise.

"Perhaps you can make shift to drink it out of the pannikin. You

see----"

"What a very odd ship--to have no spoons!" she took a sip of the soup

and screwed up her lips. "Would you get me some salt, if you please?

This soup----"

"I'm sorry, but we have no salt either. You see----"

"No salt?" and she shot another quick amazed look at him. "Mon Dieu,

mon Dieu!" at which Wulfrey pricked up his ears. "Whatever kind of a

ship--you did say a ship, did you not? Where is it going to?"

"It's not going anywhere. You see, it's practically a stranded ship

though it's really afloat----"

She put her hand to her forehead and rubbed it gently, and then clasped

it tightly, with her thumb at one temple and her fingers at the other.

"I think my head is swimming yet," she said simply. "I cannot follow

what you say."

"You'll understand as soon as you get on deck. This ship is bottled up

inside a lake on an island. It has been here for probably thirty or

forty years----"

"And you--have you been here all that time?"

"No, we were wrecked as you were, I suppose, on the banks out there.

We managed to get ashore and found this ship to live on."

"Who are 'we'?"

"The mate of the ship and myself. We were the only ones saved. It was

he saw you in the water and went in after you and brought you ashore."

"It was good of him. I will thank him. Where is he?"

"He's out at the wreckage trying to find you some clothes."

"He is a good man.... How long have you been here?"

"About three months."

"And no one has come to you in all that time?"

"You are the first. Now"--as she finished the soup--"take a good drink

of this,"--some weak rum and water warmed up in another pannikin, over

which she choked and coughed and wrinkled up her pretty nose

distastefully. "Then you will go to sleep again, and in the morning I

hope you will be all right."

"But there is so much I would like to know----"

"When you have had another long sleep. Are you quite warm?"

"Quite. That horrid stuff was like fire."

"You were cold enough when we found you. In fact we believed you were

dead."

She shivered and nestled down among the blankets with a wave of colour

in her face.

"I will sleep," she said quietly, and the Doctor left her to herself.

XXVI

It was almost dark before the mate pitched his cargo up on to the deck

and came groping up the side after it.

"What luck?" asked Wulfrey, as he came up to help him.

"Brought all I could lay hands on, but I wouldn't like to say they're

right kind of things."

"She'll be glad of them whatever they are."

"Has she come round?"

"I wakened her to take some soup and biscuit. Now I hope she will

sleep till morning."

"And you told her it was me brought her ashore?"

"Yes, I told her that. She will thank you herself."

"Did you find out who she is and where she hails from?"

"Not yet. There'll be time enough to learn all that. My only desire

was to get some nourishment inside her. She'll be building up now all

the time she's sleeping."

"An' she's a good-looking bit of goods, eh?" asked the mate, as they

sat eating.

"Very good-looking, I should say, and pulling round quickly. A

gentlewoman without doubt."

"And how can ye tell that now? There's many a good-looking hussy

that's not gentle-born."

"Undoubtedly," said Wulfrey, looking across the fire at him. "But this

isn't one of that kind. She's a lady to the finger-tips."

"Ah--too fine a lady to live on a ship with the likes o' you and me,

mebbe," growled the mate. "All same, if't 'adn't bin for me her

leddyship ud be no more'n a little white corp tumbling about out yonder

in its little white shift."

"Quite so," said Wulfrey, on whom this insistence on his sole claim to

the salvaging of her was beginning to pall. "And if it hadn't been for

me your bringing her ashore wouldn't have been of much service to her.

So suppose we say no more about it. We'll divide the honours."

"If I hadn't brought her ashore ye couldn't have brought her round,"

growled the mate.

"Six of one and half a dozen of the other."

"No six of anything. Ye can't deny I brought her ashore."

Wulfrey lit his pipe and went up on deck, wondering what was working in

the curious fellow's brain now.

When he went down again he found that Macro had opened his bundles and

spread their contents out to dry, and had turned in. He just glanced

at the varied assortment, and then, not to disturb his patient by going

anywhere near her, spread some blankets in the room next to the mate's,

and turned in himself. But he lay awake for a long time, wondering if

the introduction of this new element into the limited circle of their

lives was like to make for peace or otherwise.

XXVII

Wulfrey was up early, after a restless night, anxious to see how his

patient fared. It was such a morning as usually followed their

storms--clear and bright and sunny, with a pale-blue wind-swept sky,

and a crisp breeze that tipped the green of the waves outside with

white.

The first time he went softly in she was still sleeping, and with much

satisfaction he noted the improvement the food and rest had wrought in

her. Her face had filled out, the cheek-bones were less prominent, the

dark circles round her eyes were not nearly so pronounced as before,

though he imagined the long dark lashes and level brows would always

lend a sense of depth and witchery to the great dark eyes themselves.

The slight salting and roughening of the skin would speedily cure

itself under the application of fresh water. She was almost herself

again.

Their fire, on its bed of sand, was never allowed to go out. The

supply of wood was unlimited and always, in the depths of the heap of

white ashes, was a golden core of heat only waiting to be fed. So he

set to and prepared coffee for her, and some flour-and-water biscuits,

and when he went in again she was awake. She turned her head and

looked at him, and his heart beat quicker than was its wont.

Her eyes, he perceived, were very dark blue, almost black, and looked

the darker for the dark fringing lashes. They were very beautiful

eyes, he decided, and very eloquent,--there was something of

apprehension in them when first they met his, but it vanished when he

spoke.

"You are better, I can see. You slept well?"

"I have only just wakened. You are the doctor."

"Yes, I am the doctor. I have got some coffee for you and some

biscuits. I will get them."

"You are very good," as he came in with them and she raised herself on

to her elbow again. "Did your friend get me any clothes? I feel quite

well, and I would get up."

"He brought a whole heap of things. They have been spread out all

night, but I'm afraid they'll never dry properly till they are washed

in fresh water."

"And have you fresh water?"

"Oh, plenty,--Ashore there, in pools. If you can select a few things I

will go across and steep them. They will soon dry in the sun."

"You are very good," she said again, and sipped the coffee and glanced

up at him with a somewhat wry face. "No, you have no sugar on this

strange ship--nor milk. Nor a brush, nor a comb, I'll be bound.

Nothing but----"

"A brush and a comb we can provide at all events, and of exceptional

quality. They belonged, I believe, to His Royal Highness the Duke of

Kent."

"Edward of Kent?" she asked quickly. "Why--how...."

"Some ship, bringing home his belongings from Canada, must have been

wrecked here. We have found quite a number of his things."

"Well, he would not mind my using them," she said quietly. "He is of a

pleasant temper, quite the nicest of them all"; and as she finished the

coffee and biscuits, "If you could find me ... a brooch--no, you will

not have a brooch! ... a large pin or two,--but no, you will not have

any pins! ... Let me see, then,--a sharp splinter of wood----"

"I can get you all the splinters you want. Might I ask----"

"To pin some of these blankets about me, do you see,--so that I may get

up. And if you would get me that royal brush and comb----"

He trimmed up half a dozen sharp little skewers and left them with her,

together with the brush and comb, and plunged overboard for his morning

swim.

The mate was sitting by the fire at his breakfast when he went down

again.

"Well?--how is my lady this morning?" he asked.

"So well that she is getting up."

"Them clothes all right?"

"She will pick out what she wants. But they'll never dry with the salt

in them. I'll rinse them in one of the pools as soon as she says

which."

"There's more mebbe for the finding----" and then they heard the door

of her little room open and she came into the cabin to them.

The mate jumped up and stood staring as if she were a ghost; and even

Wulfrey, who had already made her acquaintance, eyed her with surprise,

and was confirmed in the idea that had been growing in him that there

was foreign blood in her. He doubted if any Englishwoman could have

made so brave a showing out of such poverty of material.

Fastened simply with her wooden skewers, she had one blanket draped

about her as a skirt, and another covered her shoulders, with a high

peak behind her neck, like a monkish cloak. And inside this rough

calyx the fair white column of her neck rose out of its surrounding

frillery like the stamen of a flower from its nest of petals. Her

abundant hair, combed and brushed, but still lacking somewhat of its

natural lustre, was coiled about her head in heavy plaits.

Though her garments were only rough blankets they were so disposed

about her person that she stood before them tall and slim and graceful.

Her eyes and face were all aglow at the novelty of her situation. Her

feet were bare.

She sailed up to the mate with outstretched hand.

"It was you who brought me ashore out of that terrible sea," she said,

and her voice was no longer hoarse and husky. "I thank you with all my

heart."

Macro ducked his head but never took his eyes off her.

"Gosh! Ye looked very different then, miss," he jerked. "We scarce

expected ye'd ever come round like this."

"I am the more grateful. But--what a wonderful room you have!"--as she

looked round at the mate's barbaric hangings. "Silks and satins!--and

such gorgeous colours!"

"There's bales of them about, miss, and you're very welcome to them.

They'd look better on you than them blankets."

"But the blankets are warm, and the dreadful chill of the sea is still

in my thoughts all the time. Now I would go on deck and understand

about this strange ship of yours," and Macro hastened to lead the way

and Wulfrey followed.

"But it is truly amazing," she said, as she gazed round at the

sandhills and the spit, at the tumbling waves beyond, and the unruffled

waters of the lake.

"And another ship! Who lives there?"

"No one. There is not another soul on the whole island but we three,"

said Wulfrey.

"It sounds dreadfully lonely."

"It is not so lonely as the sea."

"No, it is not so lonely as the sea. The sea is dreadful, and oh,

so-o-o cold when you are dying in it slowly, an inch at a time," and

she shivered again at the recollection.

"You must try to forget all about it."

"I shall never forget it. That is not possible. The memory of it is

frozen into my soul. What noise is that?" she asked, listening

intently with her hand uplifted.

"It's a great cloud of sea-birds that haunts the island. All the

wrecks come ashore at that end, and they live there most of the time."

"It is like the wailing of lost souls."

"Right, miss!" broke in Macro. "That's what it is. They're only

birds, mebbe, but there's the souls of the dead inside 'em, an'

sometimes they're fair deevils when they come screaming round in a

storm."

"I could believe that,--the souls of the dead without a doubt."

"Suppose we turn to something pleasanter," suggested Wulfrey. "Perhaps

you will choose out the things you think most suitable from all that

the mate brought over from the wrecks?"

"From the wrecks?" ... and she glanced at him doubtfully with a little

shiver. "It does not sound too nice."

"We will bring them up. You will see them better here," and they

spread the deck with Macro's latest importations.

"Mon Dieu, mon Dieu!" murmured she, as she turned them over with

curious fingers, and held them up to adjudge their style and make.

"But they are things of the days before the flood! ... They are too

amazing! ... They are wonderful beyond words!"

"Could ye no alter them to your needs, mebbe?" suggested Macro

hopefully.

"Perhaps--with needle and thread and scissors. But have you these?"

"Mebbe I can find 'em for ye. There's the cargoes of hunderds o' ships

out there. Ye can find a'most anything if ye look long enough. And

mebbe there's newer things if I can light on 'em."

"And some shoes and stockings, think you? I would be very glad of

them. It feels strange to go with bare feet."

"I'll find 'em if there's any there."

"It is very good of you. I thank you. Could I perhaps come too?"

The idea evidently appealed strongly to him. He looked at her eagerly,

and hesitated, but finally said, "It's no easy getting there. There's

over six miles' walk through the sand, then near a mile of wading up to

your neck in the water, and sometimes a bit of a swim, all according to

the tide. Some day, mebbe, I'll mek a bit raft to tek ye across from

the point there--just to see what it's like. But ye want these things

and I'll get along quicker alone."

"I thank you all the same. It will be for some other time then," and

Macro let himself down on to his raft and paddled away to the spit.

She stood watching him till he landed and set off at speed towards the

point.

"He is truly good-hearted," she said, as he disappeared. "He is not

all English?"

"He is from the islands off the west coast of Scotland, but he

confesses to a strain of Spanish blood also."

"And why confesses? It is not, I suppose, his own doing. One

confesses to a fault. Is a strain of foreign blood a sin in your eyes

then, Monsieur le Docteur?" she asked, with pointed emphasis.

"By no means. I should have said he rejoices in it."

"We English--British, I should say,"--with a fleeting gleam of a

smile--"are too apt to look upon all foreigners as of lower breed than

ourselves, which is quite a mistake and leads to much misunderstanding.

Every nation has distinctive qualities of its own, is it not so?"

"Undoubtedly. And unless one knows them by personal experience one

should not pass judgment. I must confess to being nothing of a

traveller."

"How came you here?" she asked abruptly.

"I was bound for America--or Canada, with the intention of settling out

there. It looks now, according to the mate, as though this strip of

sand has got to suffice us for the rest of our lives."

"Really?" ... with a startled look. "Is there no getting away then?

Does no one ever come here?"

"None but dead men, if they can help it, apparently. You were an

exception to the rule. So were we. We have none of us any right to be

here alive."

"If I had some shoes and stockings, and some proper clothes, I believe

I could be quite happy here," she said. "That is if one has not also

to starve."

"There is no need to starve. The island is over-run with rabbits.

There are fish in the lake here if only we could catch them, and out

there among the wreckage are all kinds of things--casks of pork and

beef, and coffee, and rum, and flour--enough to last us for hundreds of

years."

"It is a most excellent retreat."

"If one were sick of the world. But you surely are too young to have

arrived at that stage."

"One may be young and yet be sick of one's world.... Sometime I will

tell you.... Now, if you please, I will take a few of these things and

you will show me your pool and I will wash them----"

"Oh, I'll do all that for you----"

"Not at all. Besides, with your permission and if you will leave me

quite alone, I would like also to wash in fresh water. I too shall

never feel quite dry until I have done so."

He assisted her down to the other raft, through a break they had long

since made in the side for that purpose, and paddled ashore. There he

showed her the pool they had set apart for washing, and told her he

would come back for her at whatever time she chose.

"In two hours, please," and he went off into the sand-hills.

But his mind stubbornly refused to interest itself in rabbits. He

dropped down on the sunny side of a hummock and let his thoughts run on

this most surprising addition to their company. What could possibly

explain her,--young, beautiful, of undoubted birth and breeding, yet

ready to renounce the world, of which her twenty years or so had

apparently given her a surfeit, and to welcome the chance of a hermit

life?

It was a puzzle beyond any man's understanding. All his thinking led

him only towards shadowy possibilities. And these the thought of her

sweet face and clear frank outlook rejected instantly as libels on her

fair fame, which he, with no more knowledge than he now had, yet felt

himself prepared to defend with all his might against the whole world.

If that girl was not all that she seemed and that he believed her to

be, he would never trust his own judgment again.

All the same, it was very amazing, and she filled his thoughts to such

an extent that the rabbits hopped fearlessly about him as he sat

thinking of her; and it was long after the two hours before he came to

himself, and rewarded their temerity by knocking a couple on the head

and striding away back to find her.

She was sitting waiting for him, with a fresh-water brightness in her

face, her hair coiled loosely round her head, and her washing still

drying in the sun. She hastily bundled up her things at sight of him

and came along to meet him.

"I began to fear you had forgotten me," she said.

"Very much to the contrary. It was our dinner I came near forgetting,"

and he dangled the rabbits before her. "You feel better for the fresh

water?"

"Oh, very much better. And now I am hungry. When does your friend

come back?"

"Not till evening as a rule. If he can lay hands on what you want he

may come sooner to-day."

"And you--do you never go out there with him?"

"Oh, sometimes. But it doesn't attract me as it does him."

"Why then?"

"We are differently made, I suppose;--which is perhaps a good thing.

He delights in finding things out there. I go out only for

necessaries."

"What does he find--besides strange old clothes?"

"Oh, heaps of things--treasure. There are the cargoes of very many

ships out there. They have been accumulating for hundreds of years, I

suppose."

"And it does not attract you?"

"Not in the slightest."

"You are, perhaps, rich."

"I have enough, and I have my profession,--and little chance apparently

of making any use of either."

"Ah..." and presently, "As to that, am I wrong then in thinking that if

you had not been here I would most likely not have been here either?"

and the wind and the sun had whipped a fine colour into her face.

"You would, perhaps, not be very far wrong."

"I remember it dimly, and in broken bits, like a horrible dream,--the

crash, the terrible noise of the waves, the shouting and the screaming.

It was the Captain himself who tied me to that mast when everything was

going to pieces. And when the waves washed over me, and I felt myself

slowly dying, I would have loosed myself if I could, to make an end.

It was terrible to be so long of dying. And the cold of the sea!--oh,

it was a horror," and she shivered again at the remembrance... "Then I

died.... And then--long long afterwards--I found myself coming slowly

back to life, and beginning to get warm again, with prickly pains like

pins and needles all over me----"

"That was your blood beginning to flow again."

"----I felt warm hands rubbing me--rubbing, rubbing, rubbing. They

must have rubbed for years, and, all the time, I was slowly coming

back. They were very warm and soothing. And at last they rubbed me

back to life."

"What was the name of your ship?"

"The 'Ben Lomond,' from Glasgow to New York, and the Captain was John

MacDonald. It was a large ship and full of passengers. It is terrible

to think of them all gone but me.--Oh, terrible!--terrible!"

"Might I ask your name--since we are like to be neighbours for the rest

of our lives?"

"I am Avice Drummond," she said, with a quick glance at him. "And you?"

"Wulfrey Dale."

"And the mate?"

"Sheumaish Macro,--or Hamish, I'm not sure which."

"It is the same. He is a good man?--to be trusted?"

"I have no reason to think otherwise, but I have only known him since

we landed here. He is chock full of superstition----"

"That is the Highlander in him."

"A bit hot-blooded too, and apt to boil over."

"That is the Spaniard."

"And he's crazy after the spoil out yonder."

"The Highlander again. It is, as you say, perhaps just as well you do

not care for it, or you might have quarrelled."

"He is welcome to it all as far as I am concerned."

"I am of his country. I can understand how he feels. It is the old

riever spirit in him finding its opportunity."

XXVIII

He was vitally conscious of her proximity to him as they paced through

the soft sand towards the raft. The sight of her pink toes popping in

and out from under her blanket-skirt quickened his blood. He knew

without looking when she glanced round at him now and again, as when he

had asked her name.

He had not thought that the feeling of a woman's eyes upon him could

stir him to such an extent, no matter how wonderful they might be in

their depths of eloquent darkness. He knew all about

women,--physically, organically, professionally, and still held woman

in reverence. Experience had taught him also that in reality he and

his fellows knew very little about them beyond merest surface

indications,--that there were in most women, perhaps in all, deeps

beyond man's sounding, heights beyond his attainment,--a general

elusiveness mysteriously comprehensive of feelings, instincts,

passions, emotions, nerves, moods, humours, vapours, which a wise man

accepted without expecting ever fully to understand.

That this shapely girl in her swathed blankets should affect him to

such an extent that he was actually conscious of a superb new joy in

living, of an absolute rejuvenescence, of a vitalising of all his

energies, was a very great surprise to him. He could feel the blood

running redder in his veins. His heart beat more briskly than it had

done since he landed on the island.

But after three months of nothing but Macro and rabbits and screaming

birds, it was not to be wondered at after all, he reasoned to himself.

Life had been running on a low level. There had been nothing to lift

them above the mere satisfaction of their bodily necessities. Eating,

sleeping, getting through the days had sufficed them.

And here, into that rough husk of a life, had suddenly come a soul, to

animate them both to higher things, even though it were no more than

the ministering to her more delicate necessities.

Even Macro was feeling it, and was toiling out yonder, not for himself

but for her. Without doubt life was immensely more worth living than

it had been two days ago.

It was a joy even to cook for her, though he had always detested the

preparation of food. To know beforehand what one was going to eat was

sufficient to reduce one's appetite. To superintend a meal through all

its stages, from raw to ready, put anything beyond the mere filling of

an internal void out of the question.

But cooking for himself and cooking for her were matters of very

different complexion, and he found himself considering culinary

enterprises which surprised him greatly.

"You will let me help," she said, when they had climbed on board, and

she saw him setting to work on the rabbits.

"Can you make biscuit?"

"If there is anything to make it with," so he provided her with flour

and water and a frying-pan, and tackled his own repulsive job, looking

forward to the best-made biscuit they had had since they came ashore.

"You have no butter--lard--dripping--fat--nothing?" she asked.

"There is some fat pork. We stew it with the rabbit as a rule."

"Get me some and I will render it down and we shall have much better

cakes. Men never know how to cook unless they are trained to it. You

have no seasonings of any kind--no? Nor salt?"

"Not a scrap."

"We might find something on shore there. I saw many little plants. We

will search next time we go."

Yes, indeed, even the repellent cooking took on quite a new aspect and

became a joyous pastime in her company, and they presently sat down to

such a meal as he had not tasted since he left Liverpool. Many a more

abundant one he had had, but none with such a flavour to it, and that

was due entirely to the deft white hands that had helped to prepare it.

Meals hitherto had been in the nature of necessary nuisances. He and

the mate had often sat eating without a word between them, and with

perhaps less enjoyment in it than the rabbits out there among the

sandhills. But, henceforth, meals would be feasts full of delight

because of this stranger girl, whose presence would be salt and savour

and seasoning to the poorest of fare.

"And he--the mate,--when does he eat?" she asked suddenly, after they

had begun.

"Not till he gets back,--at night-fall as a rule. It's a good long

way, you see, and he likes to spend all his time working."

"I hope he will find me some shoes,--and some needles and thread. Then

I shall feel much happier.... And you really think we shall never get

away from here?" she asked, quite cheerfully.

"If we could prevail on Macro to think of building a boat, instead of

amassing treasure-trove, we might at all events try it. Nova Scotia is

but a hundred miles away, he says,----"

"So close?"

"But he seems to think it a risky voyage, and so far we have come

across no tools with which to build. You see, they are not things

likely to come ashore."

"For myself, I believe I could be quite content to live here," she said

again.

"For ever?--Never to get back to the larger life of the world as long

as you lived?"

"Ah--that! ... I do not know.... It is a very hollow life after all,

that larger life of the world."

"To grow old here," he said thoughtfully, emphasising his points with

slowly nodding head. "To be the last one left alive perhaps.... To be

all alone, sick, starving, dying slowly in the dark, unable to lift a

finger...."

"I would drown myself if it came to that. It sounds horrible....

Perhaps, after all, we had better build the boat and get away."

"But I don't know that we can. I know nothing about boat-building even

if I had the tools, and Macro won't turn to it till he has raked

through the wreckage, and that will take him about a hundred years. It

grows with every storm, you see."

"We must make him."

"And the tools?"

"We must find them."

"Two difficult jobs, perhaps impossible ones. You might perhaps

prevail on Macro, but even he can do nothing without tools.... But, if

I may venture to say so--it is surely early days for you to have

discovered the hollowness of life, and to feel ready to spend the rest

of it on a sandbank. Life should hold more in it than that for you."

She looked meditatively across at him for a moment, then seemed to make

up her mind. "It is natural you should wish to know.... I will tell

you.... It is a somewhat sorry story, but I think you will

understand.... My name told you nothing?"

"Nothing--except that it was a very pretty name."

"I feared it would. It is natural, I suppose, to imagine that the

whole world knows of one's misfortunes. Have you ever heard of the

Countess d'Ormont?"

"The name is familiar to me in some way," he said, staring at her in

surprise at the trend this was taxing.

"But I cannot recall----"

"And the Comte d'Artois----"

"Of course!" he nodded. "Now I remember----"

"The Countess d'Ormont was Margaret Drummond, my mother. My father is

Charles Philippe, Comte d'Artois, brother of the poor King, Louis,

whose head they cut off; and I hate and detest him for his treatment of

her.... She is dead, my poor dear one! ... She believed at first that

she was properly married to him, and I have no doubt she was--in

London. He is a poor thing, but he was very fond of her, for a

time.... I was born at Chantilly. It was before his quarrel with the

Duc de Bourbon, and we lived in Paris and elsewhere according to his

caprice. When my mother learned all the truth, and that in Paris she

was not legally his wife, it broke her heart, I think. I never

remembered her but as sad and troubled. Except on my account she was

not sorry to die, I know. I was in Paris all through the Red times,

and saw--oh, mon Dieu,--the horrors of it all!--things I could never

forget if I lived to be a thousand.... In London we were all very

badly off.... But he liked to have me with him, and poor Mme de

Polastron was very good to me, but she was a strange, strange woman....

Her death was a great blow to him ... and a great loss to me. He was

really very badly off there, and I did not like the people he had about

him,--de Vaudreuil, de Roll, du Theil, and the rest, and I made up my

mind to seek my own life elsewhere. And that is about all."

"And you have friends in America--relatives perhaps?"

"My mother's people, in Virginia. They have prospered there.... The

new life out there, where all men are equal, appeals to me. Now you

understand why I would not have cared very much if Mr Macro had not

brought me ashore and if you had not rubbed me back to life. I seem to

have no place in the world. I hate the aristocrats for what my mother

suffered at their hands, and I hate the others for the terrible scenes

I passed through as a child. These things are stamped into my heart

and brain for ever. And that is why this lonely island, far away from

it all, seems better to me than any place I know."

"You would grow tired of it."

"I could never grow as sick of it as I did of what I have left. It is

not perhaps a very full life, but neither is it hollow and heartless.

You I can trust, and Mr Macro also. It is lonely, but it is sweet and

peaceful----"

"Wait till you see it in a storm."

"Storms are nothing when you have seen Paris drunk with blood.

Ach!--the horror of it!" and she flung out her hands in a gesture

full-charged with terrible memories, and then pressed them over her

eyes as though to blot it all out.

"Well, we will do all in our power to make things comfortable for you,

for as long as we have to stop here.... For your sake I hope it will

not be long. Life should hold more for you than this," said Wulfrey,

and mused much on the beautiful stranger and her strange history, and

wondered what the future held for them all.

The mate came back when it was growing dark, very tired and in none too

good a humour at the poverty of his finds. The results of a hard day's

work, so far as he disclosed them, were a number of rusty sail-maker's

needles which he had found in a chest, and half a dozen pairs of shoes,

sodden almost out of semblance to leather.

Miss Drummond, however, was delighted and thanked him heartily.

"You will lend me a knife, and out of some of your beautiful silks I

will make a new dress. I shall like that better than wearing any of

those ancient ones which belonged to the dead."

"You're very welcome, miss. I broke into more'n a score of chests and

boxes and not a blessed stocking among the lot. And them shoes are

pretty bad, but they were best I could find."

"I will rub them with fat and they will return all right, and the

needles will come bright with sand. I shall do very well now. Thread

I can get from a piece of your linen. I thank you very much. Now you

will eat some of my cakes."

"Best cakes ever I tasted," he said with a full mouth. "Takes a woman

to cook properly. And best day's work I done since I got here, fishing

you out the water."

"Perhaps--I am not yet sure, but I thank you all the same. When will

you begin to build a boat for us to get away in?"

"Ah! ... Building a boat needs tools. What for do you want to get away

so quick? You're but just got here."

"At present I am content. But--for always? I am not sure."

"Doctor, there, is always wanting to get away. But he knows we can't

build a boat without tools. An' I put it to him--has he so much as set

eyes on a tool out yonder since we come ashore?"

"I can't say I have, but then I haven't seen as much of the wreckage as

you have. There may be any amount of----"

"Oh, ay, there mebbe! But so far we haven't struck 'em, an' it's no

good talking o' boats till we got the tools."

"We will look for them," said The Girl confidently.

"Oh, ay, ye can look for 'em, and mebbe sometime a boat'll come ashore

ready-made, or one that we can make shift to patch up. Meantime we've

got all we want here and there's plenty more for the getting out

yonder. So be content, say I, miss, for by rights the Doctor and me

ought to be two clean-picked white skeletons out there on the pile, an'

you ought to be a little white corp tumbling about on yon spar for the

birds to peck at."

"Are there skeletons out there?" she asked with a shiver.

"Heaps."

"I think I will not go. I have seen so much of Death. I would forget

it for a time."

"Ye'll meet him sure if ye try to get across from here in any boat we

could build," growled the mate, and filled his pipe and his pannikin.

XXIX

Next morning Macro went off as usual to the wreck-pile, and Miss

Drummond set to work on her dressmaking. Wulfrey hoisted up out of the

hold for her such pieces of silk and linen as she required, and scoured

a couple of the smallest needles with sand till they were usable.

Then, with the sharpest knife he could find among their stock, he cut

out on the deck, under her direction, various lengths and designs which

to him were meaningless, but replete with possibilities from her point

of view.

But when, presently, she saw him preparing to go ashore for water and

rabbits, she threw down her needle and said, "I will go also. You will

not mind?"

"On the contrary, I shall mind very much. I shall feel honoured by

your company. It is a pleasure to have someone to talk to again," and

he helped her down on to the raft, and thought how much less

interesting shoes were than little naked feet.

"Do you not then talk much with Mr Macro?"

"Sometimes, and sometimes we hardly spoke all day."

"You quarrelled?"

"Hardly that, but ... well, we had not very much in common, you see.

His mind was always full of his discoveries out there, and one got

rather tired of it at times."

"I do not think I shall like him as much as I thought."

"Why that? I'm sorry if I have said anything that seems to reflect on

him in any way."

"I am used to judging for myself. It is a look that comes into his

eyes at times,--like a horse when it is going to bite. No,"--with a

decided little nod,--"I shall not like him as much as I hoped; and I am

sorry, for I ought to feel grateful to him for pulling me out of the

water."

"I'm glad you are feeling grateful for being alive, anyway," he said,

with a smile. "That is better than being doubtful about it."

"It is better to be alive than dead. And if we have to live here all

our lives--very well, we must put up with it. And if you and he die,

and I am left all alone, and get old and sick, as you said yesterday, I

will make an end of myself. I was thinking about it all night except

when I was sleeping."

"I'm sorry to have troubled you so. We will hope for better things.

Anyway I have no intention of dying for some time to come, if I can

help it."

"You must not," she said, with sudden deep earnestness. "I count it

God's good mercy that you are here, for I can trust you."

"I am used to being trusted," he said quietly.

"I know. I can see it.... If I had been all alone ... with nobody but

him ... But, no! I could not..."

"I don't know that there is any harm in him."

She sat nodding her pretty head meaningly.... "You have not seen men

loosed from all restraints as I have. I was but a child and did not

fully understand. But I see their faces and their eyes still, fierce

and wild and hungry for other than bread. When men are answerable to

none but themselves they become wild beasts and devils."

"It is a hard saying."

"But it is true. I have seen it."

"And women?"

"They are as bad, but in a different way. Oh, they are terrible."

"And you and I and Macro here? To whom are we answerable?" he asked,

to sound her to the depths.

"He is answerable to you," she said quickly. "You and I are answerable

to one another, and to God, and to ourselves--to all that has made us

what we are. I do not think you could trespass outside all that, any

more than I could."

"I do not think I could. I am honoured by your confidence in me."

He helped her ashore, and they filled the buckets at the pools, and

then she expressed a wish to see something more of this sandbank where

they might have to pass the rest of their lives.

So they threaded their way among the hummocks to the northern shore,

and, at the first green valley they came to, she went down on her knees

and examined carefully the nestling growths on which the rabbits fed,

and found among them certain pungent little plants which she thought

might serve for flavouring, and they gathered enough to experiment with.

The firm smooth tidal beach, with the ripples creaming up it in

sibilant whispers tempted her to bare feet, and she handed him her

shoes and splashed along as joyously as a child.

"It is a most delightful island," she said. "I do not think I would

ever tire of it."

"Oh, yes, you would. It is all just the same, you see. You can walk

on and on like this and round the other side for forty or fifty miles,

and every bit of it is just like the rest."

"I think it is beautiful."

"It gets monotonous in time. The only diversion is the pile of

wreckage down yonder. That is constantly changing and growing."

"And discovering more skeletons! It feels odd to think that I should

have been one myself if you two had not happened to be here."

"I'm sure it feels very much nicer to be comfortably clothed with

flesh," and glancing at her supple grace and entrancing bare feet and

ankles, he found himself profoundly grateful for the facts of the case.

The thought of her as a skeleton was eminently distasteful to him.

"Yes, it is better. Dead bodies and bones have always had a horror for

me; but not the simple fact of being dead, I think.... I do not think

I would be afraid to die--if it were not very painful. But ... well,

the thought of my dead body is horrid to me. I would not like to see

it."

"You're not likely to be troubled to that extent anyway."

"No, one is at all events spared that. But why do you talk of such

unpleasant things when the sun is shining and the waves are sparkling?

Tell me about yourself. All you have told me so far is that you are a

doctor, and that your name is Wulfrey Dale. I never heard the name

Wulfrey before. And that you were going out to Canada when you were

wrecked here. Why were you going out?"

He would have liked to be as frank with her as she had been with him.

But that was impossible. Another woman's good name was too intricately

interwoven with his story, and the whole matter was so open to

misjudgment. If he tried to explain he must either label that other

woman as murderess or himself as an incapable doctor, and he chose to

do neither. He wished she had not asked, but found it only natural

that she should desire to know all about him.

"I have nothing much to tell," he said. "I come from Hazelford, in

Cheshire. My father had the practice there and when he died I

succeeded to it. But the wander-spirit seized me. I wanted a larger

sphere. The new world called, and I came,--as it turns out to a still

smaller place----"

"But we are not going to stop here all our lives. We must build that

boat and get away."

"We will live in hope, anyway, but for that we are dependent on Macro,

and he's not an easy man to drive."

"We will see," she said confidently. "How do you catch your rabbits?"

"Every one of these little valleys is full of them. As soon as you

appear they all bolt for their holes and in the panic they tumble over

one another and you pick them up."

"I am always sorry to kill things, and they are so pretty," she said,

as they crept cautiously up the side of the nearest hummock. "But they

are very good and I suppose one must eat."

"Or starve. Now--see!" and he jumped down into the hollow, which

scurried into life under his feet, and came back in a moment with a

couple of rabbits which he had already knocked on the head.

"Poor little things!" she said, stroking the soft fur.

"They were dead before they knew it.... Our lake ends there," he said,

pointing it out to her from where they stood on top of the hummock.

"But the island goes on and on, all just the same as this as far as you

can see."

"It looks very lonely ... but I like it," and she sat long, with her

hands clasped round her knees, gazing out over the wandering yellow

line of sandhills, and the slow-heaving seas which broke in

white-fringed ripples along the beach.

"And you left no ties behind you there in England?" she asked suddenly,

showing where her thoughts had been.

"No ties whatever. Friends in plenty, but nothing more. When my

father died I was quite alone in the world."

She nodded fellow-feelingly, and they sauntered back in a somewhat

closer intimacy of understanding and liking for one another.

XXX

Macro had had a good day out there, and returned in the best of humours

with himself and as hungry as usual.

As he ate he enlarged on his finds, and when he had finished his supper

he piled the fire with light sticks to make a blaze, and spread them

out for Miss Drummond's inspection.

He had evidently lighted on the personal baggage of some person of

quality. There were rings and brooches and pins and bracelets, of gold

and silver, set with coloured stones, a couple of small watches

beautifully chased and studded with gems, a small silver-mounted mirror

all blackened with sea-water, two gold snuff-boxes with enamelled

miniatures on the lids--quite a rich haul and very satisfactory to the

craving of his spirit.

The Girl examined them all carefully, and Wulfrey, watching her quietly

through the smoke of his pipe, thought she handled them somewhat

gingerly and distastefully, and understood her feeling in the matter.

And now and again he caught also a glimpse in the mate's black eyes, as

they rested on her, of that which she herself had felt and resented.

It might be only the unconscious continuation of the gloating

proprietorial look with which he regarded his treasures, which still

gleamed in his eyes when they rested on her as though she herself were

but one more of them. But whatever it was it was not a pleasant look,

and Wulfrey was not surprised at her discomfort under it. He was as

devoutly glad that he was there as she could be. Alone with this wild

riever, in whom the cross-strain of his wilder forebears was running to

licence in its sudden emancipation from all life's ordinary

shackles.... It would not bear thinking of. Yes, he was truly glad he

was there. And then he remembered, with another grateful throb, that

if he had not been there, neither would she have been. For the mate

most assuredly would never have brought her back to life.

"Some of these are of value," she was saying. "But they are rather

pitiful to me.... Some dead woman has treasured them and she is gone.

Perhaps you came upon her skeleton out there.... But they are not all

real stones----"

"And how can ye tell that now?" asked Macro gruffly.

"I can tell at once by the feel of them. That now"--pointing to a

heavily-gemmed bracelet--"the emeralds are real, the rubies are real,

but they are all small. The white stones are not diamonds, but very

good imitations. They look almost as well, but they are not diamonds.

If they were that bracelet alone would be worth some hundreds of

pounds."

"Deil take 'em! And you can tell that by feeling at 'em?"

"I can tell in a moment. You see I have handled many jewels--some of

the finest in the world, and I have seen very many imitations of them."

"The deil ye have! How that?"

"I have lived among those to whom they belonged, and I am very fond of

precious stones."

He went away to his own cabin and came back presently with a good-sized

bundle done up in blue velvet, and opened it before her. Wulfrey was

surprised at the extent of his treasure-trove. For these were only his

most precious possessions. He knew that he had in addition

considerable store of silver articles which he had been allowed to

examine from time to time.

If Macro's idea had been to dazzle her with his riches he must have

been disappointed. For she greeted the display with a depreciatory

"T't--t't!"--and said presently, as she picked out a piece here and

there for examination, "It looks like a peddler's pack.... And it

makes me sad to think of those to whom they belonged...."

"They've no further use for them. And there's no telling who they

belonged to. They're for any man's getting now," said Macro

defensively.

"I suppose so. All the same ... For me--no!" with a most decided shake

of the head.

"Are they good, or is there false ones among them too?"

"Many are good," she said, passing them rapidly and somewhat

distastefully under her delicate fingers, "but not by any means all....

You have laboured hard to accumulate so much."

"Harder than ever I worked in my life before, but it suits me fine."

"But what good is it all unless you can get away from here and turn it

to some good use?"

"We'll talk of that when I've got all I want, mebbe."

"You are like a miser then, ever accumulating and loth to spend."

"Just that! Ye see I never had siccan a chance before,--nor many

others either. Ye wouldna care for a ring or two, or mebbe a bracelet

or a brooch?"

"Oh, I could not. It is good of you to offer, but ... no, I thank you.

They would always make me think of the skeletons out there. Poor

things!"

"They don't hurt, and they're aye laughing as if 'twas all a rare

joke," which made her shiver with discomfort and draw her blanket

closer round her neck at the back.

"Well, well!" said he, with a hoarse laugh, as he made up his bundle

again. "Folks has queer notions. Ef 't 'adn't been for me----"

"And the Doctor," she interposed quickly.

"Ay--and the Doctor there----"

"I know," she cut him short, "and it is very much nicer to be sitting

here by a warm fire than tumbling about on a mast out there. I

appreciate it, I assure you."

Perhaps it was to restore the balance of his spirits, which had

suffered somewhat from the discovery that his treasure was not all he

had thought it, that made him apply himself more heartily than usual to

the rum cask that night. By the Doctor's advice any water they drank

from the brackish pools was mixed with a few drops of rum. Macro

always saw to it that a cask was at hand, and he himself took but small

risks as far as the water was concerned. But he could stand a heavy

load, and as a rule it only made him sluggish and uncompanionable.

This night, however, as he sat dourly smoking, and taking every now and

again a long pull at his handy pannikin, it seemed to set him brooding

over things and at times he grew disputatious.

Miss Drummond had turned with obvious relief to the Doctor and said,

"These things do not interest you?"

"As curiosities only, not intrinsically. I never had any craving for

jewelry!"

"It is a feminine weakness, I suppose, though I have known men who

outvied even the women in their display."

"We have simpler ways in the country, and more robust."

"Mebbe you're right, and mebbe you're wrong," growled Macro, as the

result of his cogitations. "I d'n know, an' you d'n know, an' Doctor,

he d'n know, an' none of us knows.... They're mebbe all right... What

the deil wud folks want mixing bad stuff wi' good like that?"

"It is done sometimes to make a larger show, and sometimes as a matter

of precaution," said Miss Drummond quietly. "Those who have valuable

jewels are always in fear of having them stolen. They have imitations

made, and wear them, and people believe they are the real ones. It is

commonly done."

"An' is it a thief you wud call me for taking these?"

"These are dead men's goods and dead women's, and you do not know whose

they were, so it is not stealing. But, for me, I do not like them."

"An', for me, I do. An' more I can get, better I'm pleased."

"Each to his taste, and you are very welcome to them all. Now, if you

please, we will forget all about them, and speak of pleasanter things,"

and she turned to Wulfrey and began questioning him as to his knowledge

of London, which was not nearly so extensive as her own.

The mate smoked and drank and glowered across at them. More than once

Wulfrey caught his glance resting balefully on The Girl. More than

ever was he thankful that he was there to look after her.

XXXI

"No," said The Girl to Wulfrey, as she sat busily sewing at her new

dress on deck next morning, "I do not like your mate as much even as I

thought. Do you know what I would do if you were not here?"

"What would you do?"

"I would go and live on that other ship, or else among the sandhills."

"Either would be very uncomfortable. I am glad I am here."

"He looks at me as though I were another piece of his treasure-trove,

especially when he is getting drunk. If he had tried to wrap me up

with the rest in that blue bundle of his I should not have been very

much surprised."

"He brought you ashore, you see."

"Well? What use would that have been if you hadn't brought me back to

life?"

"Not much, I'm bound to say. But I imagine he considers it gives him

first claim on you."

"First claim?--for what?" she asked quickly.

"Oh, on your regard, your gratitude,----"

"My gratitude, if you like. My regard--that goes only where I can

respect and esteem. And for him--neither. If he were never to come

back again from over there I would not in the least regret it."

It was as inevitable that these two should instinctively draw closer to

one another, as that their doing so should create something of a breach

between them and the mate, and that he should feel and resent it.

Except the untoward circumstances of their lot there was practically

nothing in common between him and them. His outlook and aims were as

different from theirs as were his habits and upbringing. Yet it did

seem preposterous to them that three persons, situated as they were,

should not be able to live together in peace and good-fellowship.

To the ancients, without doubt, the gods would have been apparent

behind the slow-drifting white-piled clouds, and behind the storm-wrack

and the mists, laughing at the perverse little ways of men, and

watching with interest the inevitable tangle produced among them by the

advent of a woman.

Since the year one, two have found themselves good company and the

coming of a third has led to mischief. And yet even that depends on

the spirit that is in them. More than once, since he landed on the

island, Wulfrey had found himself wishing Providence had sent him

honest Jock Steele for company, and that it was the mate's bones that

were whitening out there in place of the carpenter's.

Whether he himself would have fared so well, if he had not stuck out

his leg at risk of his life and helped the mate on to his raft, and so

had come ashore alone, he was not sure. And again, whether, if he had

been alone, he would ever have sighted The Girl on her mast, was

doubtful. If they had much to put up with in Macro, they had also much

to thank him for. And so--to bear with him as well as they might and

give no occasion for offence if that were possible.

But it was no easy matter. They were having a spell of fine weather

which enabled him to go out to the wreckage every day. And every night

he came home ravenous, and ate and drank and afterwards sat smoking

with scarce a word.

If they enquired how he had fared he growled the curtest of answers,

and showed plainly that their polite interest in his doings was not

desired by him. He showed them none of his finds, but sat smoking

doggedly, and occasionally gazing through his smoke at The Girl in a

way that distressed and discomforted her.

But there was nothing in it that Wulfrey could openly take exception

to. Even a cat may look at a queen. The look in the mate's black eyes

was akin to that with which the cat favours the canary, when he licks

his lips below its cage;--if he only dared!

Still, they were free of him during the day, and the discomfort of him

at other times but drew them closer together. But Wulfrey, watching

the man cautiously, saw in him signs and symptoms that he did not like,

which bade him be prepared for a possible change for the worse in their

relationship.

For one thing, he was drinking more heavily than he had ever done since

they landed, and the drink and the brooding of his black thoughts might

well hatch out unexpected evil to one or other of them. As he lay

there of a night, smoking and drinking, with a face of gloom and

smouldering fires in his eyes, he was more than ever like a sleeping

volcano which might burst forth in flame and fury at any moment.

But for the lurking possibilities of trouble, the cool way in which he

devoted himself to his own private concerns, and left them to attend to

all the irksome little details of the common life, would have had in it

something of the humorous.

Miss Drummond was indignant and was for leaving him supperless when he

came home of a night.

But Wulfrey rigorously repressed his strong fellow-feeling therewith,

and determined that no provocation should come from their side. So

they continued to make ample provision for all, and the mate helped

himself as if by right. If, however, good-feeling on the part of the

maker has anything to do with the compounding of cakes, as The Girl

averred, those she made for the mate must surely have lacked flavour,

for her views on the matter were most uncompromisingly expressed, both

by hands and tongue, as she made them.

"Does he look upon us as his servants, then?"--with a contemptuous slap

at the innocent dough.--"To do all his work without so much as a 'Thank

you'?"--another vicious slap. "--And to be glowered at as if one were

a rabbit that he wanted to devour!"--cakes pitched disdainfully into a

corner till the time came to cook them.--"No!--for me, I wish he would

stop out there among his skeletons and trouble us no more."

Her little tantrums at thought of Macro gave Wulfrey no little

amusement. The vivacity of her manner as she delivered herself,

blended as it was of Scottish frankness and French sparkle, made her

altogether charming. He soothed her ruffled feelings, however, by his

own eulogistic appreciation of the cakes she provided for their own

use, and it was then that she explained to him how intimately the

character of a cake is associated with the feelings of its maker.

Matters came to a head a few days later, when the commissariat

department began to run low in certain essentials.

"We're almost out of flour and pork, Macro," Wulfrey said to him, as

the mate was preparing to set off as usual one morning. "Will you

bring some back with you?"

The black-faced one hesitated one moment, and then cast the die for

trouble.

"Well, you know where to get 'em," he growled.

"Yes, I know where to get them," and Wulfrey braced himself for the

tussle. "But----"

"Well, then--get 'em, and be ---- to you!" and he leaped down on to his

raft and set off for the shore.

XXXII

Wulfrey watched the mate's retreating figure for a minute or two and

then turned quietly to The Girl.

"Are you prepared to trust me completely, Miss Drummond?" he asked.

"Absolutely. What is it you want me to do?"

"We cannot go on this way. He is becoming insufferable. Unless you

have anything to say against it, we will take possession of the other

ship--you and I, and leave him here to himself."

"Yes--let us go. When shall we go? Now?"

"We must make it habitable first. It is as empty as a drum, you know."

"All the better, since we are overcrowded here with that man. It is to

get away from unpleasantness that we go."

"We shall need fire,--that means sand for a hearth; and wood--we have

heaps here; and cooking things--we will take our fair share, and our

blankets. Everything else I can get out yonder."

"Allons! Let us go at once and get them."

He looked carefully round the horizon. "The weather will hold for a

day or two still, I think. Today we had better lay our

foundations--sand, wood and so on. Then tomorrow we will go out to the

pile and take our cargo straight to the other ship."

"What do we do first?" she asked, abrim with excitement.

"We will take a load of wood across at once and then go for sand. We

will leave the cabin open to air it and light a fire."

She was as eager as a child going to a new house, and when presently he

helped her up over the side of the other schooner, she tripped to and

fro delightedly, and could hardly wait till he forced back the rusty

bolts of the cabin hatch with a piece of wood, so impatient was she to

inspect the new home.

"I like it better than the other," she said, as they stood in the

little cabin.

"Why? It seems to me just about the same."

"The man of gloom is not here. It makes all the difference."

They got their wood on board, and he tumbled it down the fore-hatch,

which was easier to handle than the main. Then they went ashore,

filled a bucket with fresh water, got half a dozen rabbits and a supply

of the pungent herbs.... "Why so many?" she asked, and he said

quietly, "I don't want to hit him below the belt,"--at which she

laughed--"We can afford to be generous. The breach will be wide enough

as it is."

Then they loaded the raft with sand, and getting back to the ship,

arranged their hearth, and with his flint and steel succeeded at last

between them in lighting a thin chip, which he ceremoniously handed to

her and begged her to start their fire.

And as she knelt and applied it, and coaxed and blew till the cheerful

flames shot up with a crackling shower of sparks, and the thin blue

smoke streamed up the companion-way, still kneeling she waved her hands

above it and said, "Light and warmth and comfort and peace! God bless

the fire!" and he endorsed it with a hearty "Amen!" and thought he had

never seen a fairer sight.

When the mate got home that night, he was somewhat surprised to find a

supply of food and no objections made to his helping himself. He

chuckled grimly, and showed by his face and manner that he considered

the matter settled on eminently satisfactory lines.

They made no enquiries as to his doings and he volunteered no

information. Wulfrey and Miss Drummond talked together as if he were

not there. He lay and smoked, and drank, and glowered at them.

In the morning he set off as usual, and when they had taken their

blankets and their fair share of cooking-utensils across to the

'Martha,' and got them all stowed away, Wulfrey turned to The Girl and

said, "Now I will go out to the store-house yonder and get all I can

lay hands on."

"I will come too. Perhaps I can help. I am very strong, and I would

rather go with you than wait here alone. But I do not wish to see any

skeletons if you can manage it."

"We will try to keep clear of them,--if you are quite sure----"

"Have we got to swim, as that man said?"

"I may have to. You need not. I will go out to the pile and make a

raft, and take you across on it. And all that will take time, so the

sooner we're off the better."

They paddled across to the spit and hurried along to the point, as

nondescript a pair as could well be imagined in disrespect of clothing,

but in all else that mattered--in all the great essentials that make

for vigorous life--in health, good looks, and high and cheerful

spirit--pre-eminently good to look upon.

For work on the wreck-pile the less one wore the better; and so he was

clad in one simple but sufficient garment, which consisted of a long

strip of linen wound many times round his waist and falling to the

knees like a South Sea Island kilt. And she wore one of the

prehistoric woman's sarks which Macro had brought over from the pile,

and a similar, but slightly longer, kilt which swung gracefully a foot

or so above her ankles as she walked.

He carried an axe in his hand, and had a knife at his back, in a

seaman's belt which he had unhooked from its owner's body out there on

the pile one day; and his face was somewhat grave and intent, since he

was considering the possibilities of Macro's violent rejection of the

situation he had himself created, and the consequences that would then

ensue. But her bright face was all alive with the spirit of adventure

and the novelty of this new departure.

"We look like Adam and Eve turned out of Paradise, and setting out to

conquer the world," she laughed excitedly. "What would _your_ friends

think if they saw you so?"

"What they thought wouldn't trouble me in the slightest. If they

understood they would understand. If they didn't it would not matter.

We are doing what has to be done in the only way to do it. See the

birds out there!"

"Are those really all birds? I thought it was a cloud whirling about,"

and she stood and stared in amazement.

"Listen and you'll hear them,"--and every now and again the south-west

breeze brought them the thin strident wailing of the hungry myriads as

they swooped and fought for their living.

"They sound horrid," said The Girl, with a sudden shadow on her face.

"It is like the wailing of lost souls, as he said. Do they never

attack you?"

"We have had more than one fight with them. But you can always escape

by slipping down into a crack or jumping into the sea. Where did you

learn to swim?"

"We had a cottage in the Isle of Wight for a year, when first we came

from France, and I grew very fond of the water."

"Do you see Macro over there?" as they came to the end of the point.

"He's hard at work. We'll tackle a different part. If you will sit

down here and rest, I will get across and be back as soon as I can."

"Could I not come with you?"

"I don't know how deep the channels may be. Sometimes we can wade

across, sometimes we have to swim."

"I don't mind. It can't make me any wetter than if I have to jump in

because of the birds. And I have been wetter still."

"Very well. It will save much time," and they waded out alongside one

another,--The Girl catching her breath at times with spasmodic little

jerks of laughter, as she stepped into unexpected depths or a wave came

higher than usual;--and he, intent as he was on the business in hand,

yet mightily cognisant of her proximity and the penetrating and

intoxicating charm of it.

When, at one sudden plunge, she gasped and clutched wildly at his bare

arm, her touch sent the blood whirling through his veins. He took her

soft wet hand, which was all of a tremble with excitement, in his

strong and steady one, and she gripped it tightly and drew new strength

from it.

Out on the great pile of wreckage in front, but somewhat towards their

right, they caught glimpses now and again of Macro--a wild dark figure

silhouetted against the pale-blue sky behind--as he climbed to and fro,

and stood at times, and swung up his arms and his club and smashed his

way through to the desire of his heart.

Wulfrey worked round to the left, and so came upon a channel which they

had to swim. He fastened his axe into his belt at the back and they

struck out together. He watched her anxiously at first, but was

satisfied. She swam well and knowingly; they soon touched ground

again, and another wade and another short swim brought them to the pile.

The Girl had been regarding it with curious eyes and ejaculations of

wonder.

"But it is amazing!" she jerked, when at last they clung to a ledge of

the chaotic jumble of flotsam and jetsam. "I never saw anything like

it in my life."

"That's just as well. Now we'll climb up here, and you will rest while

I gather wood and rope and make a raft. Then we'll see what fortune

sends us."

"Whatever are all those?" she asked, when they had worked their way to

the top, and stood looking round.

"Those are the bones of the ships that have perished here. There are

hundreds of them half-buried in the sand."

"It is the most amazing sight I ever set eyes on," she said again, and

sat and gazed at it all while he worked busily at the raft.

"Now," he said, climbing up to her again at last, "We will look for

necessaries first and take anything else we come upon that may be

useful. Those barrels are pork, but they are too heavy for us to

handle----"

"Couldn't you break one open?"

"Then the birds would be on us like a shot. Some of them have got

their eyes on us already," and he pointed to them swooping watchfully

round. "We did that once and had to fight and run for it. Maybe we'll

come across some smaller ones before we're done. Here's a small cask

of rum. We'll make sure of that," and he rolled and carried it to

their landing-place, and they scrambled on.

"These barrels are biscuits. Some of it may be good. We'll bring the

raft round for it. Those small casks are flour. It's only good in the

middle. We'll come round for one of them presently. We want some

coffee. We're sure to come across some sooner or later."

"What is it like?"

"Small square cases about so big."

"Oh, I wonder what's in this great case."

"We'll soon see," and he smashed at it with his axe. "Hardware. We'll

add to our stock since it's here."

"And this? Oh, I wish I had an axe too. I want to break open every

box we come to," and he laughed out at her quick surrender to the

riever spirit.

"Why do you laugh at me then? It would surely be helping you."

"I know just how you feel, and now you know just how Macro feels."

"I know just how he feels. It must grow upon one. I don't want any of

the things, but still I would like to break open and find."

"We'd better stick to business. When we've got all we come across that

will be of service I'll hand you the axe and you can smash away at

anything you like, except your toes.... No doubt what's in that box

anyway,"--for the ends of rolls of silk were sticking out of it. "I

expect Macro has been over this ground already. Shall we take some?"

She picked out several rolls, saying, "They may come in useful, even if

it's only to make our cabin as fine as his," and he stacked up the silk

along with a raffle of rope, which was always to the good.

They scrambled to and fro, so busily smashing open cases and discussing

their contents that they took no note of the birds gathering above them

in ever-increasing numbers. Their ears had grown accustomed to their

raucous clamour, and the fact that it had grown louder had not troubled

them. But suddenly--they were delving into the side of a huge crate of

blankets at the moment--the sky was darkened as by a cloud, and

Wulfrey, glancing up in fear of a change in the weather, jerked out a

sudden exclamation which made her jump. Then he crushed her roughly

down into a narrow black chasm between the blanket-crate and another,

and dropped in after her, just as the cloud, grown bold by its

increase, came swooping down upon them.

Never in her life had she imagined such a nightmare experience. The

bristling confusion of the wreckage, the shimmering blue sea beyond,

the very light and peace of day itself, all were blotted out in an

instant, and in their place was nothing but a prodigious whirling and

swooping of vari-coloured feathered bodies, snaking necks, cold beady

eyes, pitilessly craving them as food, cruel curved beaks keen to rend

and tear, and a hideous clamour of wild wailings. The flutter and beat

of myriad wings set the whole atmosphere throbbing, till the blood

drummed furiously in The Girl's ears and her head felt like to burst.

She shrank down on something that crackled and subsided under her,

feeling herself terribly bare to their assault. Wulfrey reached out an

arm and groped for a loose blanket and dragged it over them and so hid

the nightmare from her. His arm was bleeding when he drew it in.

"They will go presently when they find there is nothing to eat," he

said into her ear.

"They looked as if they would tear one to pieces," and he could feel

the shudder that shook her.

"They would try if they got the chance."

"They are awful.... Oh, listen!"--as the rest of the cloud, sure that

such a clamour portended food, whirled round their shelter, brushed it

with wings and feet, shrilled their needs and their disgust more loudly

than ever, and swept away to seek more satisfying fare elsewhere.

The sound of them drifted away at last, occasional stragglers still

swooped down to make quite sure there was not a scrap left, but

presently these followed the rest and Wulfrey climbed up and looked

about him.

"All right," he said, and reached down a hand to her. "I think they've

gone after Macro," and he hauled her up into the light.

"Your arm!" she cried.

"Only scratches. No harm done.... What is it?" for she was staring

with tragic face into the hole out of which she had just come.

And looking down into it he saw that he had flung her bodily on to what

had been a skeleton, but was now only a confused heap of brittle bones.

"I'm sorry," he said, "but there was no time to pick and choose."

"It's a horrible place. Let us go home!"

"We'll go at once as soon as we've found some coffee ... and I would

like another knife or two.... Look in that chest. Macro has opened it

for us.... And if you find any tobacco, I'll thank you," and he rooted

rapidly through one broken-open seaman's box, while she did the same by

another.

"Tobacco--I think," she announced presently, ... "and a knife and a

tinder-box."

"Another knife" was his find. "And we'll take these two coats----"

"Whatever for?"

"Well--if any of those screaming deevils, as the mate calls them,

should come after us as we go back, you feel them less through a coat

than on your bare skin."

"I don't think I'll come again."

"Oh, it's quite easy to avoid them, you see. And they soon go if they

find nothing eatable."

"Hideous things! ... Will those cases be coffee?"

"I think so.... We'll chance one anyway.... And those small casks are

rice. We're doing famously. Is there anything else you would like?"

"Heaps of things--spoons, forks, plates, stockings----"