as going to remain on the wreckage, retained possession
of the other. Gaunt then pulled shoreward; and as soon as the full
length of the warp was paid out he dropped the grapnel overboard and
then made the best of his way back to the wreckage, which Nicholls had
already begun to drag shoreward by the warp. The progress of the
wreckage shoreward was very slow; but it improved somewhat when Gaunt
was able to rejoin his companion. As the warp was hauled in it was
carefully coiled down on the wreckage; and when at length the grapnel
came to the surface it and the warp were once more promptly transferred
to the raft and a fresh cast was made, by which means they managed in
about an hour and a half to get the spars with all attached so close to
the beach that they grounded. It was now a comparatively easy matter to
cut it apart and so obtain the sail, which was the first thing they
required. The forecourse was selected, as being of considerable
dimensions; and this, when detached from its yard, was dragged up on the
beach and spread out to dry. With this sail, and rope procured from
among the rigging which had come ashore attached to the spars, they were
able to construct two capital tents; and by night-fall the little party
found themselves snugly housed.

The two succeeding days were devoted to the construction of a shed of
dimensions sufficient to contain all that they thought would be likely
to prove valuable to them among the stores and the cargo of the ship.
The structure was twenty-four feet long, by eighteen feet wide, and
eight feet high to the eaves; and it had a regular pitched roof, with
gable-ends, so that when the rainy season came--as come, Gaunt felt
certain it would--the wet might be thrown off, leaving the goods beneath
its shelter undamaged. It was not a very substantial affair, the four
corner-posts being the strongest portion of it, formed as they were by
the trunks of four standing cocoanut-trees, the sides and roof being
wattled and afterwards thatched with palm-leaves. But the engineer
thought it would serve its purpose; and his great object was to get
everything he could from the wreck in the shortest possible time,
because, lying where she was, she might, and probably would, go to
pieces on the occasion of the first heavy gale which might spring up.

The shed completed, their next task was to secure everything which might
prove of any possible value to them from the cargo of the wreck. In
o