nd compared with them Art, Music, Religion,
Ambition, and the gauds of Civilization were as nothing.

This power to live in the moment is the form of strength that brings
men through battles and women through adversity. It fells cities and
builds them. On Kerguelen it is salvation. For, here to think of the
future, unless in terms of material necessities, to dream, to brood,
means death or madness.

But Bompard and La Touche, resting themselves after their labours, were
not living in the moment nor in the past nor in the present, they were
living in that strange sad land called the Might-Have-Been. They might
have been in the way to a jolly booze by now if that fool who
provisioned the cache had not forgotten the drink. They were thankful
for nothing. They had food, they had clothes, they had tobacco. They
were glad enough of the blankets, but even the thought of the blankets
could not relieve their depression.

They were not drunkards, but the cache had given them hopes of drinks.
These hopes shattered they sat like discontented children who had been
promised sweets and disappointed.

But this did not last long, the Hopeless is its own antidote and after
half a pipe of tobacco their cheerfulness, such as it was, returned and
they fell to discussing with the girl the best way of treating the
stores.

Bompard, considering the difficulty of transporting the stuff to the
caves, proposed that they should move their abode right up to the cache.

Cleo pointed out that there were no caves here, so, unless they moved
the caves as well as their belongings, they would have nowhere to sleep
in.

"I think the best thing we can do," said she, "is to take what we want
and then cover up the rest till we want some more."

"Put the stuff under the rocks again?" asked Bompard.

"Yes."

"Mon Dieu!" said La Touche.

It was not what he said but the way he said it that angered the girl.

La Touche was a problem in her mind. She could understand Bompard but
she could not quite understand La Touche. It seemed to her that he was
one of those people who without much intelligence, yet, or perhaps
because of that fact, make fine centres of rebellion. She could fancy
him leading a mob to tear down something that vexed him, and everything
seemed to vex him, at times.

But though she was not clear about La Touche she was quite clear about
herself and she was determined to be his master. She felt instinctively
that he was the leader o