I grasped his hand and pressed it, meaning by that silent token to let him know there was no reproach, but rather the deepest pity and sorrow, in my heart. Nevertheless, I would not let him go until I had made him rise, and then, when he was on his feet, gradually led him towards the hut; for, not to speak only of the danger to which he exposed himself by remaining half-clothed in the damp night air, there was something in his manner that made me resolute to get him away from the grave.

I said again that we would hold a service over his wife's remains in the morning, and then I inquired how he had found out where she lay buried.

He answered that he had asked Norie, when I was at work on the beach, and he had told him. He then wished to know if it was possible to preserve her body, so that, should we ever get away from the island, he might be able to have her remains conveyed to England. To soothe him, I said there was wood enough to build a coffin, which we would set about after we had completed a certain project that I would explain the meaning of in the morning. And so I got him to the hut and made him lie down, and went to the door and stood there awhile.

I could not hear the women, but the deep breathing of Norie and the weary seamen made a moving sound, and, combined with the moan of the chafing sea, affected me in a manner I cannot express. I could trace the outlines of their bodies upon the white sail, and they lay as still as ever did that dead sailor I had buried.

My mind went to the women then, and I thought of Ada Tuke lying in her damp clothes, and the poor widow who in a few brief days had gauged the very lowest depths of human distress, and the girl whose life I had under God been the means of preserving. Great heaven! What a bitter weary watch was that I kept! What a panorama of wild ocean scenes and desolate death was my mind!

When I believed that Sir Mordaunt was asleep, I fell on my knees, and lifting up my face, prayed with an anguish of soul I shall never forget in this life, that help might come to us, and that we might not be left to perish miserably on this lonely, unfruitful and wave-beaten rock. So passed the time until I believed my three hours expired. I then went softly into the hut, but had to gently feel over the bodies of the sleepers before I could distinguish Tripshore. I shook him, and he started up, on which I instantly spoke to him, that he might recollect himself, and went into the moonlight where he could see me; and then telling him what I had done, and bidding him keep a look-out for ships, and to seek for any wreckage that might be serviceable to us on the beach, I laid myself down in his place, and fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

CHAPTER XVI.

I AWOKE very much refreshed, and found the sunshine pouring strongly into the hut, and myself alone. I got up and went out, and saw Sir Mordaunt leaning against one of the trees to the right of the hut, watching the rest of the party, who were variously employed about the beach. We shook hands warmly, and I asked him how he did. He told me that he had slept well and felt heartier, and he certainly looked so.

I judged by the sun that the morning was not far advanced, for which I was very thankful, as there was a great deal to be done that day. The first thing that took my eye was a fire burning at the foot of the little hill facing the sea. A number of pieces of rock had been piled into a square, and the fire made up in it. There was a quantity of brushwood in heaps near the fire, and Norie, coming at that moment with a bundle of the wood, and flinging it down, made me see how he was employing himself. The smoke of the fire went up in a straight line, for there was not a breath of air. The sea lay like oil slowly waving. It was of a most deep and beautiful blue beyond the reef, though the cloudless sky was a light silvery azure. The water broke in long flashing ripples on the reef, and rolled up the beach in little breakers.

Tripshore and Hunter were busy among a quantity of wreckage, a good portion of which had been collected whilst I was asleep. About a stone's throw from where I stood were Mrs. Stretton and Ada Tuke, the former kneeling, but what doing I could not perceive. Beyond them was Carey, spreading some wearing apparel in the

sun.

Having exchanged a few words with Sir Mordaunt I walked over to the ladies, and then saw what they were about. A deck-plank lay upon the sand, and upon it Mrs. Stretton was chopping up some beef-fat out of the cask. A flour-cask stood alongside, and, on looking at it, I perceived it was the cask I had found during my watch. After exchanging greetings, and hearing they had slept well and felt well, I expressed my happiness that we should have found the cask of flour.

The salt water has got to the outer portions of it,' said Mrs. Stretton; but the flour is dry in the middle. I believe by mixing both parts, and kneading them well with fresh water, we shall not notice the salt when we have baked them in cakes with this fat.'

She kept on mincing the fat whilst she spoke, and Miss Tuke stood by, waiting to help her to make the cakes. I was heartily pleased to see them busy, for there is no antidote like work for melancholy.

I called to Tripshore to tell me where the telescope was, and ascended the hill with it. The moment I pointed it in the quarter

where the others had seen the shadow on the preceding day, I saw the land; but I could make nothing of it beyond observing that it was full twenty miles distant, and either a mere rock or else a hill on an island, the lower portions of which were invisible. I carefully searched the rest of the horizon, but could discover nothing, and came back again to the point of land. I struggled with my memory to fashion a mental picture of the Bahamas. My having studied the chart so closely on board the yacht helped me a great deal; but though I figured all the larger islands, such as Abaco, San Salvador, Eleuthera, and the islands as low as the Caicos Passage, yet I could not even faintly recall the bearings of the islets and cays. Nor, indeed, would it have served me had I been able to do so; for I had no idea of our latitude and longitude, and no means of determining our position. Yet in spite of this I kept on conjecturing and wondering, and asking myself if that land could really be one of the greater and inhabited islands, and whether in that hope it would be wise to venture for it on a raft.

But the idea of a raft recalled our project of the preceding night -a good idea, it seemed to me, and full of promise. So I shut up the glass, and joined Tripshore and Hunter, who, as I have said, were at work among the wreckage, selecting wood for the raft. As I advanced towards them I caught sight of a strange-looking object, resembling a big capsized tub, about fifty yards away in the direction of the wreck. I went to see what it was, and to my astonishment and delight found it a great turtle, weighing, as I should have supposed from the appearance of it, not less than four hundred pounds. It was on its back, and alive. I was thunderstruck at first, and then filled with joy. This, to be sure, was one of the months in which the turtle on calm moonlight nights comes up the shore, and lays its eggs in the sand. I might fairly suppose that since one was here others were about, so that the idea of our perishing for want of food need no longer haunt me.

I rejoined the men, and asked which of them had caught the turtle.

'It was me, sir,' says Tripshore. Half an hour after you had gone into the hut, I see that chap come up out o' the water. He made me look at him by hissing. He was like a small steam-engine slowly coming along out o' the sea. I stood stock still till he was well ashore, then picks up a piece o' timber, and gets to leeward of him, and shoving the timber under him, I worked and sweated until I managed to heave him over on his back. But, Lord, the weight of him.'

'He's full of soup and meat,' said I, and his shell should serve as a tank. And now, my lads, what do you find handy among this raffle?'

'All that we want, sir,' responded Hunter.

This was evident, for there was a great quantity of timber, and

some of it in big pieces. Among the stuff were the spars I had secured overnight. The men had dragged them ashore, unbent the sails, and snugged away the running gear that had been attached to the canvas. I saw, however, that if we were to get our raft afloat after we had built it, we must construct it down in the bight of land where the water was smooth; and explaining this to the men, we set to work to convey the material to that place. This took us an hour; but at the end of that time we had lashed and nailed three large pieces of timber into the form of a triangle for the foundations of the raft, and we had got this afloat in the smooth water, when Norie shouted to us that the cakes were baked.

We thereupon quitted our work, and after cooling our faces in the salt water we walked to the hut, where we found the rest of the party waiting for us to come.

There stood eight brown cakes, smelling very good indeed, upon a plank. I opened two tins of meat, and divided the contents. We then poured some sherry into the water in the kettle, and breakfast was ready. But first Sir Mordaunt asked us to join him in a prayer, which was the wish of us all; so we knelt, whilst he prayed aloud, putting up such a petition as I need not repeat the language of, though any man who can imagine himself in our situation will understand its character.

This done, we fell to our repast, the dog meat as usual. I praised the cakes highly. bit salt, but not disagreeably so.

getting his bit of salt To be sure they were a

'Pity some 'baccy don't come ashore, sir,' said Tripshore, with a languishing look at the sea.

That was my want too. One of the hardships of those hard times was the being without tobacco. I sat next to Sir Mordaunt, and whilst we were breakfasting he asked me what scheme I and the seamen were carrying out. I told him what our idea was, and he and the others seemed greatly struck by it.

"It's a fine notion,' said Norie. 'There's every chance of the raft being sighted. Can you carve letters upon wood, Walton?' 'I have never tried,' said I. But I dare say I can.'

6

'Let me have that job,' he exclaimed. I can carve letters very well. Tell me what to say, and after breakfast I'll set to work.'

I proposed an inscription, and asked if it would do. There was a short debate, but nobody seemed able to improve upon it, and so my suggestion was adopted. Norie drew a pencil from his pocket, and scribbled down the words on the deck-plank. I then in a low voice told Sir Mordaunt that we meant to lash a dead body to the raft, and explained our reason. The idea shocked him just as it had shocked me, but his judgment promptly appreciated the value of the

scheme.

C 'We'll say nothing to the women about that part,' said I. They must be drawn aside whilst we make the body fast.'

6

But they will see it as the raft floats away,' said he.

Why, perhaps they will,' I answered; but distance will soften the horror.'

Here Tripshore jumped up. Me and Tom's all ready, sir.' I rose too, but the baronet put his hand on my arm.

'Pray let us have the service we spoke of,' he exclaimed, with a most imploring face.

I could not resist his appeal, precious as the time was. Turning to the men, I said—

'Sir Mordaunt wishes us to join him in a funeral service over poor Lady Brookes' remains. We owe it to her memory, my lads, and to our affection for the kind and large-hearted gentleman whose loss is the cruellest a man can bear."

Tripshore looked willing at once; but Hunter, a rough-fibred man, seemed impatient, though he said nothing. I took up Carey's Prayer-book, of which the print was not illegible, though parts of it were a good deal smeared through the soaking salt water, and giving the baronet my arm, we stepped into the sunshine, followed by the others, and walked to the place where Lady Brookes lay buried. The sand was heaped where the body was, which enabled us to form a circle round the grave. Sir Mordaunt read the service himself. He pronounced the words firmly, but with a most affecting spirit of devotion, omitting certain solemn parts, which would have been superfluous under the circumstances. I feared he would have broken

down before he got to the end, but he struggled on manfully, though several times, when he raised his face, I saw the tears on his cheeks. I cannot conceive a more pathetic figure than he made. Bareheaded, in his shirt-sleeves, 'his long beard accentuating his haggard features, his humid eyes, his hands grasping the Prayer-book often thrown up in an imploring gesture when he removed his gaze from the page to fix it upon the bright blue sky-I say it would have melted an iron heart to have seen him. And into this service there entered an element-of horror shall I call it ?-that would be absent

from the usual ceremony. I mean we could not think of the poor body lying at our feet without reflecting that there she was, dressed as in life, uncoffined, separated from us by a thin layer of sand, such as a breeze of wind might easily scatter, and leave her exposed in her dreadful lonesomeness. When I remembered her terrors, the fright the thunder-storm had caused her, her swooning away because she had not the nerve to hear of the sufferings a fellow-creature-one of her own sex too-had endured, I thought, 'Great God! could she but see herself now!'

When the service was over, the two seamen and I went back to the raft, leaving the baronet and the women at the grave, and Norie to carve the letters and mind the fire, which I told him to feed with damp stuff, to raise a thick smoke.

I have said that we had already laid the foundations of the raft in the form of a triangle. I recommended this shape because it gave a kind of bows to the raft, and I believed that by affixing a broad