that she understood our situation as accurately as I, and that she could not look away from the immediate present without her heart fainting in her.

'If the worst comes to pass,' said I; 'if, after waiting, we see no prospect of relief; then, before our food fails us, we must turn to and pull this hut down, and make as big and strong a raft as we can manage. But that alternative, as I have told the others, is so full of danger, that before adopting it our extremity should be greater than it is, and our patience all gone.'

As I said this, Hunter put his head into the hut, and said there was a wooden case come ashore. It was too large for him to carry alone. He wanted to know where Tripshore was.

'I'll give you a hand,' said I, jumping up; and I followed him to

the beach.

It was a large, white wood square box, and glanced among the ripples which rolled up the beach. It lay close to where we had launched the raft. We waded into the water, and hoisted it out of the sand, and conveyed it to the hut, where we prized open the lid, and came to a casing of tin. This we cut, and found the case full of biscuits, which had been perfectly protected from the water by the tin casing.

I called to Miss Tuke to come and look, and told her that every discovery of this kind improved our chances of escape, by enabling us to give the raft more time to do its work.

I for one shan't stop for that, Mr. Walton!' exclaimed Hunter. 'I've been overhauling that wreckage down there, and there's stuff enough for my purpose.'

'What do you mean to do?' I asked.

'Build a kind of catamaran,' he replied, ' and take my chance alone, if nobody 'll come with me.'

'You can do as you please,' said I, noticing the obstinate look in the man's face; nobody will stop you. You're a sailor, and don't require anyone to point out the risks you'll run.'

Just then Mrs. Stretton and Norie arrived, the latter sweating under the kettle, that was full of salt meat, from which the steam was soaring in clouds. Tripshore, hearing our voices, also came round to where we stood, and listened, with the gleaming knife with which he was operating on the turtle forking out of his hand.

All hands being here, saving Sir Mordaunt,' said Hunter, folding his arms and looking around him,' I'll put my case. Here we are, imprisoned on a island. Where it is, no one knows. Two blessed days we've been here, and ne'er a sail have we seen. My belief is, that if we was to stop here twelve months we'd see northen go by. What have we got to wait for, then? The raft that's gone adrift may do some good-I was willin' enough to lend a hand to build it --but it may come to northen; and are we goin' to keep all on waiting and waiting, when, maybe, that raft's gone to pieces? What I'm goin' to do is to build a sort of houtrigging machine as 'll not capsize,

and light enough for a man to shove along. If nobody 'll come in it, I'll go alone. If I'm picked up, good; the wessel as picks me up 'll come for the others; and if I'm washed overboard and drowned, well, I'd as lief rot in the sea as rot here.'

'Let him do it,' cried Norie, eagerly, looking at me. chance, at all events.'

'It's a

'Hunter is his own master,' I replied. He knows the risks, and that the odds against him are ninety-nine in the hundred.'

'Damn the odds!' shouted the man, angrily. What are the odds here? They're all agin us. You know that, Mr. Walton.' Turning to Tripshore, he said, 'Will you give me a hand to build the thing I want?"

'Ay,' said the other, 'I'll give you a hand, Tom; but it'll be helping you to build your coffin, my lad.'

Well, when you're ready, come,' exclaimed Hunter. "There's a spell o' daylight left yet."

So saying, he walked hastily towards the wreckage, from which he had already selected a portion of the material he required. When he was out of hearing, Miss Tuke said—

'Why are you opposed to his scheme, Mr. Walton?' 'I am not opposed to it, I am indifferent,' I answered. I should favour it if the chance of the man losing his life was not, as I believe it is, equal to a dead certainty.'

'But he may sight a ship, and be the means of sending help to us,' exclaimed Norie.

If

'Yes, he may-he may-and he mayn't!' I replied bitterly. there's any good in a raft at all, then the raft we sent away this morning should answer our end. If the thing is seen, the dead messenger aboard will not appeal less forcibly than a living man. If it is not seen, there is no life to be lost, no long hours of torment to be endured.'

'But something must be done-some effort must be made,' said Norie, in a low voice.

'My God!' I cried, 'have we been idle? What more could we have done? Tell me what to do give me an idea. If practicable, it shall be executed to the letter. But don't force us to throw away

our lives in a senseless effort to preserve them.'

'Tom means to go,' said Tripshore, who stood by; and he'll have his way. Only he shouldn't be let to use up all the nails, Mr. Walton. We may come to want 'em ourselves.'

'Go you and help him, Tripshore, as you promised,' said I; but keep an eye upon the nails too, for, as you say, we may want them, though I hope not.'

For here let me repeat that the idea of the eight, or, if Hunter would not stay, the seven, of us committing ourselves to the sea in such a raft as we should be able to construct, was intolerable to me. Of all marine fabrics, the raft has been the theatre of the worst sufferings. At the very best it is but a clumsy platform, at the mercy

of the winds and surges. A very light sea will set it awash, so that you may reckon upon sitting up to your hips in water nearly all the time you are aboard. It needed no very vigorous imagination to conceive what our situation would be in a seaway, the water pouring in coils over the level stage, that would swing to the surges like an ill-balanced kite, our bodies soaked to the skin, our provisions washed away or spoiled. It was not to be expected that Norie and the women could realise all that was meant by the proposal to leave the island on a raft; but to me it offered itself as a dreadful alternative, and though life was as dear to me as it was to the others, I felt that it would be a wiser resolve to stick to the island, and trust to God's mercy for a rescue, and if no succour came, then to die on dry land, than launch ourselves upon the sea in a raft, and take the risk of courting in that way all those dreadful sufferings, that protracted anguish, and that final extinction, which make some of the naval records the ghastliest and most terrible literature in the world.

CHAPTER XVII.

It was hard to tell the hour by the look of the sun, but I guessed it to be about four o'clock. I sat down on the grass near the hut, with my back against a tree, whilst Mrs. Stretton and Carey hung up the pieces of beef which had been cooked, and Miss Tuke finished her job of cake-making. The fire had waned; but though we should not let it expire, it was impossible without incessant and painful labour to keep it throwing up a heavy smoke. Only a very thin trail of smoke went up now.

I asked myself, Even should the densest smoke we could get out of the bush be seen, would its meaning be understood? Would it not be thought the smoke of a steamer? Or if guessed to come from this rock, the smoke of a fire lighted by some persons who had landed on a short visit?

These were crushing thoughts, for, as you know, we had but two chances the smoke and the raft; and if we gave up the smoke as hopeless, we had nothing left but the raft, which might prove useless too, and what then was to be done?

My dejection was so great for a time, that a feeling of utter indifference stole over me. I thought to myself, Well, if God has deserted us, what is the good of our striving? If we are sentenced to perish here, why chafe our hearts into rags with thoughts of how to get away? Every mortal creature has his appointed time, and if ours has arrived, let us not make ten thousand deaths of it by our fears and recoilings and our madness to escape it.

The breeze that had been blowing all day had fallen somewhat, and was now a gentle wind. The sun was still high, and the water on fire under it. It seemed cruelly hard that we should have this fine weather now when it was of no use, when had it come earlier it

would have saved us from this dreadful fate, by enabling us to ascertain our whereabouts, and to steer the yacht accordingly. I looked at the reef where she had gone to pieces, and at the water beyond, but could see no fragment of her. There was a very slight swell rolling in from the sea, and the reef gleamed in it as the water rose and fell, and every now and then there would be a sudden beautiful play of foam, which glistened in a hundred tints in the sunshine, like the sparkling of light in trembling dewdrops.

All the while I looked I was saying to myself, ' In what part of the Bahamas is this island? What land is that visible from the hilltop there? Is it possible that no vessel ever traverses those leagues. of dark blue sea away yonder, near enough for her people to see our signal, or for us to spy her canvas or the smoke from her funnel?' In this age, when all the oceans are crowded with shipping, it seemed scarcely conceivable that our fate should have thrown us upon an island in unnavigable waters. Remembering my passing mood at that time, I can understand those fits of sullenness and of ferocity which have possessed the shipwrecked mariner as hope dies in his breast.

I sat watching the two seamen collecting the materials for a small raft on the beach, with a dull, unconcerned eye. I had never felt so hopeless before; but, thank God, the depression was but

transient.

I had been resting and musing in this way for some time, when Sir Mordaunt came from his wife's grave, where he had been toiling since we had buried the coffin. His appearance it was that rallied me, by making me feel ashamed of the selfish character of my despair in the face of such an affliction as had come upon him. He walked very slowly, and showed many symptoms of great physical distress. I met him, and gave him my arm. He leaned upon me wearily, but said nothing until he had seated himself.

I have covered the grave

'Have you finished your task?' said I. 'Yes,' he replied. I can do no more. with stones, and to-morrow, I trust, Norie will have completed the cross he promised to make and inscribe. I knew the labour would soothe me, Walton. Now that I have marked her resting-place with my own hands, my mind is calmer than it was.'

I hope you will not expose yourself again to the sun,' said I, 'nor attempt any more hard work.'

Ah, I am too old for hard work,' said he, with a sad smile, laying his hand on mine. And surely, Walton, shipwreck ages a man's heart terribly. Who could have imagined that our cruise would end in this way? Yet you all seem to bear up well. Where are the others? Where is Ada?'

In the hut, with Norie. The other women will, I expect, be at work on the turtle.'

And what is Tripshore about? '

I explained, believing that he would take my view of Hunter's

scheme; but instead, he exclaimed, ' Why, the man is a brave fellow to venture it. Do you say he will go alone?'

Who would accompany him?

'Yes, indeed; but that leaves him so much the braver. Do you know, he may fall in with a vessel, or manage to reach some inhabited coast. It will help our chance, Walton.'

He was eager and restless on a sudden. He looked with animated eyes across the sea, and clasped and unlocked his hands.

'Yes,' he repeated, it will help our chances. Life is still precious, Walton. It would be a dreadful thing to die on this islandno living creature left to tell the world what has become of us. Some effort must be made.'

I knew that as well as he. However, it would have been cruel to extinguish the hope, and, I may say, the new spirit which my explanation of Hunter's scheme had kindled in him, by representing its idleness. Indeed, I was heartily glad to see him waking up out of his grief, and taking an interest in our distressful position, and admitting the preciousness of life. His misery had been dangerously numbing his mind, and had he continued much longer in that mental condition, I have no doubt that he would have fallen melancholy mad. This quickening in him therefore gave me real pleasure, and I applauded myself for my good sense in carrying out his wishes with respect to his wife's interment, and in not hindering him by officious friendship from doing his part. The mind knows its own burdens. best, and how to vent itself; and certainly one way of lightening melancholy is to let it expend itself in forms of its own choosing.

After Tripshore and Hunter had been working for an hour down in the creek, whither they had carried the stuff for the raft, they came up to the hut for their supper. It was time for that meal, as we could guess more by our appetites than by the sun and as we had a mind to treat ourselves to a change of food, we set a piece of boiled beef upon the deck-plank, and each person helped himself to a biscuit.

:

It was easy to see how greatly Sir Mordaunt and the others were taken by Hunter's scheme, by the way they regarded him. They eyed him as if he was a hero. Almost as soon as he presented himself, he was asked by Sir Mordaunt what progress he had made with his raft.

Why, sir,' he answered, 'I hope by noon to-morrow to have put this beast of a island a long way astern.'

'You have great resolution and courage,' exclaimed Sir Mordaunt. I pray that God may protect and guide you.'

He won't guide us here,' answered Hunter, bluntly; and protection 'll be of no use if we're not to get away. As well be drowned, I says, as become a skeleton on a island. I know this, sir-I've got northen to do but to keep all on steering west, and I'm bound to come right.'

'Wind and weather permitting,' said Tripshore.