plank of wood as an immovable rudder at the broad end, the thing would blow along steadily. We had plenty of nails and spikes, and the frame of the raft being afloat, we soon decked it. Of course the work was extravagantly rough, but that we cared nothing about, providing we made it strong enough to hold. The raft being completed, we set to work to rig her. We took the yacht's fore-top-gallant yard and securely nailed to it the best and lightest piece of stuff we could come at to serve as a yard. To this we bent the top-gallant sail, and all three of us buckling to it, stepped the yard that was to serve as a mast into a crevice in the middle of the raft, where we securely wedged, and then stayed it.

Although this description may run glibly, the job was a hard one, because our tools were few, and little to the purpose. The morning passed quickly whilst we were at work, and in the middle of it a pleasant breeze sprang up in the north-west, and kept the sea shivering as though the sunlight flashed in a mighty field of diamonds. It carried the smoke of the fire across the water in steel-blue coils, which looked to be leagues long, and which I was for ever breaking off my work to glance at.

We had scarcely set the mast up on the raft and secured it, when Norie, accompanied by Miss Tuke, came down to us, carrying a piece of deck-plank.

'Here's the inscription,' said he, looking well pleased with his work; and he put the board down on the sand, that we might see it. The letters were bold, well cut, and each as long as my thumb. The inscription ran thus

18. LADY MAUD' WRECKED ON
6

JULY
EIGHT SURVIVORS.

SAVE US.

A BAHAMA CAY.

There were a great many letters in this, and I was astonished at the rapidity and accuracy with which they had been carved.

It would have taken me two days,' I said, and then perhaps no one would be able to read it.'

I gave the board to Tripshore, who nailed it at the masthead by standing on Hunter's shoulders.

Why couldn't you build a raft big enough to carry us all away, Mr. Walton?' said Miss Tuke.

'We mustn't venture it yet,' I replied. Nothing but the certainty of perishing here should make us face the peril of going afloat on raft.'

'But is it likely,' said she, that we should be on the water long without meeting a ship?'

'Ah!' I replied, "if I could foretell that, I should know what to do.'

'We cannot go on stopping here,' she exclaimed piteously, clasping her hands.

No; and we don't intend to stop,' said I. Look at the noble signal that smoke is making as it stretches across the ocean.

Who

knows but that at this very moment it may be seen, and help coming? And see that message,' I added, pointing to the board the men were affixing to the masthead of the raft, which will shortly be afloat, and which, for all we can tell, may be the means of delivering us from this island before another day is passed. Don't lose heart,' said I, tenderly, taking her hand and looking earnestly at her. "Your courage has been our mainstay all through. Don't fail us when we most want you.'

She coloured up a little and averted her face, but made no reply. I beckoned to Norie, and, drawing him aside, told him in a few words what we were about to do, and begged him to go to Sir Mordaunt and ask him to draw the women into the hut, or keep them apart from us and out of sight until we had done. He walked off, and in a minute or two Sir Mordaunt called Miss Tuke, who left us. Presently I saw the baronet, leaning on his niece's arm, and accompanied by Mrs. Stretton and Carey, move slowly towards the interior of the island, as if he had a mind to see the place; and the moment they disappeared we set to work.

The rigidity of the body I had buried on the preceding night determined me not to disturb it. I explained this to the seamen, and Tripshore said he believed that poor Jim Wilkinson would make the best body for our purpose. The two corpses had been buried above high-water mark, and the places where they lay were distinguishable by the appearance of the sand there. But the men could not remember in which of the graves Wilkinson's body was, and therefore we had to clear away the sand to find it out.

Every nerve, every fibre in my body seemed to shrivel and shrink up at the bare contemplation of exposing the poor fellows' remains, but I would not suffer my inward loathing and horror to master me. I was persuaded that the raft, if sighted, would serve our purpose more effectually if it carried a dead body than if it went bare; and the needs of eight human lives in dire peril, and without any prospect of preservation if help was not summoned, determined me to persevere in our scheme.

Tripshore was deadly pale, and worked with a dogged resolution, as if, like me, he would not permit his feelings to master him. Hunter showed no emotion at all. Happily, the first grave we uncovered contained Wilkinson's body. We raised it, and dusted the sand from its face, and carried it to the raft. I should have been willing to let it lie on its back, with a piece of canvas over its face; but Hunter, with whom this scheme had originated, said—

No, no, sir; let's do the job thoroughly. He must be fixed sitting upright, and then they'll think him alive, and bear down. If they see him on his back, they'll say, "Oh, he's dead," and sail away.'

I could not deny that he was right, so we sat the body up with its back to the mast, and lashed it in that posture; but so dreadful an object did it look, that I was oppressed with a deadly giddiness

and sickness after we had completed the loathsome business, and had to sit for a while and keep my eyes closed.

Nothing now remained to be done but to make the clews of the sail fast and send the raft adrift. The first was easy enough, but the other very difficult, for, calm as it was, the ground swell betwixt the beach and the reef was tolerably heavy, and would quickly drive the raft ashore and strand her if we did not mind. To guard against this, we carried a line round the mast, keeping both ends in our hands, and arming ourselves with pieces of timber to shove her clear, we scrambled across the limb of land, and reached the extreme point of it, where we hauled upon the line and brought the raft abreast. Then, unreeving the line, we went into the water as high as our waists, and by dint of shoving got the raft clear, when her sail at once caught the wind and away she crawled, dead to leeward, but very steadily, the long rudder-like board astern of her heading her perfectly straight, and the dead body sitting in the shadow of the sail like a living man.

We scrambled back again to the beach, and mounted the hill to watch her, Norie joining us, and bringing the telescope with him. Sir Mordaunt and the women were coming slowly along from the west side of the island, but observing me to motion and point, they hurried their pace: but before they reached the hut they stopped and stood looking at the raft, that would be visible to them from that point. I saw Miss Tuke turn to her uncle, and then point to us and then at the raft, clearly astonished at the sight of the man on board, and wondering who it could be. Norie, before joining us, had hove a quantity of damp brushwood on to the fire, that sent up a dense column of smoke that arched over into a beautiful bend when it reached a short height, and went blowing along the sea, casting a long black shadow upon the water, in the very middle of which the raft crawled steadily forward, like a cart going along a straight road. The shadow on her made her an extraordinarily clear figure against the blue water and the sky of the horizon. I was sure that no ship, keeping anything like a good look-out, could miss her; and as she went further and further away, and became smaller upon the flashing waters of the south-east, I felt a new stirring of life in me: hope grew buoyant, and for a little time at least I was more light-hearted than I had been, ay, ever since that gale had burst upon the Lady Maud,' and driven us in darkness into these dangerous waters.

The three of us who had built that raft stood watching her until she was a mere speck in the wake of the smoke. Then muttering an earnest prayer to God that she might effect our purpose, I went down the hill, the seamen following me.

Catching sight of the turtle as I walked, I told Hunter to kill it: first, because I knew it is a cruel thing to keep those animals long on their back; and secondly, because its meat would save the other provisions, and be a relish for us, who, Heaven knows, stood in need of any comfort in that way that we could come at. I was in no mood

to watch him destroy the creature, so I walked over to the trees under whose shadow Sir Mordaunt and the others were resting themselves. On my drawing near, Miss Tuke asked me eagerly who the person was that had gone away in the raft. I was obliged to tell her, but I did so with reluctance and a kind of shame.

Was he dead?' she exclaimed, in a thrilling whisper, and grasping Mrs. Stretton's hand.

I exactly explained our motive, but the shocked expression lingered long in her face.

I was worn out and overcome with the heat, and threw myself down upon the grass. Seeing my exhaustion, Mrs. Stretton filled a shell with sherry and water, and I swallowed the draught gratefully. She then came and sat by my side. I had had little to say to her since we had been cast ashore, and small leisure to observe her closely. She had removed her hat, one that Miss Tuke had given her, and which the sea had soaked without tearing from her head-I say, she had removed her hat when under the trees, and her thick, black, beautiful hair had come away from its fastenings, and hung about her in a manner that gave a peculiar power and a wild kind of spirit to her dark, handsome, and uncommon face.

'You bear your sufferings with admirable courage,' said I. 'Hard as our plight is, your trials have been so heavily in excess of ours, that I can only admire and wonder at your fortitude and patience.'

'It will not do to look back,' she answered. "We might humbly wish that God's hand had fallen less heavily upon your poor friend, Mr. Walton.'

'I hope,' said I—we spoke in a low voice that could not be overheard that Miss Tuke does not think me wicked in helping to send a poor dead man in quest of succour. Heaven knows, whatever I have done, I have done for the best."

'Oh, be sure we all believe that,' said she, with a note of rich and tender gratitude in her voice. And after a short silence, she asked, 'Do you think we shall ever get away from this island?'

Yes,' I replied; for whether I thought so or not, the proper answer to her question was yes.

It is

'Sir Mordaunt frets cruelly over his wife,' she continued. breaking his heart, I believe, to think of her lying in the sand there in the condition in which she was buried. He told me you had promised to get the men to make a coffin for her. Cannot that be done?'

'Yes,' said I. 'I had forgotten. After dinner it shall be done. And by the look of the sun it seems about time that we got our midday meal. How many cakes did you bake?'

'Enough for dinner and supper,' she replied.

Then let us get dinner now,' said I; for by this time Hunter had done his business with the turtle, and with the help of Tripshore had dragged the great creature up to the hut.

As there was nothing else cooked but the meat in the tins, we

had some of that; but in order to save the slender stock, I asked Mrs. Stretton and Miss Tuke to devote themselves that afternoon to boiling some of the salt beef in the kettle-the only cooking utensil we possessed-and I likewise requested Norie to cut up the turtle for salting and drying. I then in a low voice told Sir Mordaunt that I had not forgotten my promise, and that I would set to work after dinner to build a coffin for his wife's remains. He pressed my hand

in silence.

It was a bitter thing to look at our miserable repast, and round upon our rude hut, and recall the Lady Maud's' sumptuous cabin and plentiful good fare. Only a painter could give you any idea of the interior the hut presented, and of our appearance as we sat, or stood, eating with our fingers. No one who has not suffered in that way can imagine what it is for the civilised instincts to find themselves abruptly and helplessly plunged into a state of pure barbarism. The women used the knives when eating, and managed with less discomfort now that they had the little cakes as platters for their portions of preserved meat; but we males had to eat like monkeys, that is, there was nothing for it but to use our fingers for forks, and to Sir Mordaunt, who was a most fastidious man in his habits, this trifling hardship was a sterner grievance than the being without a bed, or the having no coat nor hat to cover him.

We made in that hut a complete picture of a shipwrecked party. Sir Mordaunt, as I say, was without coat or hat; I was in my bare feet; Norie had not yet manufactured the extraordinary cap from a piece of canvas that he afterwards wore. Though the sun had dried our clothes, yet the salt water had given them a most beggarly aspect, more especially the women's. Then, as we had built the hut among the trees, we had the trunks of some of them standing among us and crowding the interior. Happily the grass made the ground a soft lodging; but taken altogether, the sail as a carpet, the yacht's timbers nailed roughly to the trees, the trees in the midst of the hut, coupled with our melancholy figures, one lying, another standing, a third squatting, produced one of the wildest and most striking pictures that can be conceived.

'I wonder,' says Norie, filling the shell with water from the kettle, and eyeing it with an air of rueful wonder, 'I wonder,' says he, if such a calamity as this ever befell a yachting party before.'

'It may well have happened,' said I.

And it may happen again, sir,' said Tripshore.

'If ever our misfortunes come to be known,' exclaimed Sir Mordaunt, they should make yacht-owners who undertake long cruises very cautious in their selection of skippers. And yet, Walton, as you know, I had the fullest confidence in Purchase. I never for a moment doubted that he was a first-rate navigator.'

Tripshore looked at me.

'How long will it take the raft to get into the track of ships?' asked Miss Tuke.