meant. Then, when they had come fully at it, the one who had proposed
that they should make spears of their knives, cried out to know why a
kite would not do, and at that I was confounded, in that so simple an
expedient had not occurred to any before; for, surely, it would be but a
little matter to float a line to them by means of a kite, and, further,
such a thing would take no great making.

And so, after a space of talk, it was decided that upon the morrow we
should build some sort of kite, and with it fly a line over the hulk, the
which should be a task of no great difficulty with so good a breeze as we
had continually with us.

And, presently, having made our supper off a very fine fish, which the
two fishermen had caught whilst we talked, the bo'sun set the watches,
and the rest turned-in.

XIII

The Weed Men

Now, on that night, when I came to my watch, I discovered that there was
no moon, and, save for such light as the fire threw, the hill-top was in
darkness; yet this was no great matter to trouble me; for we had been
unmolested since the burning of the fungi in the valley, and thus I had
lost much of the haunting fear which had beset me upon the death of Job.
Yet, though I was not so much afraid as I had been, I took all
precautions that suggested themselves to me, and built up the fire to a
goodly height, after which I took my cut-and-thrust, and made the round
of the camping place. At the edges of the cliffs which protected us on
three sides, I made some pause, staring down into the darkness, and
listening; though this latter was of but small use because of the
strength of the wind which roared continually in my ears. Yet though I
neither saw nor heard anything, I was presently possessed of a strange
uneasiness, which made me return twice or thrice to the edge of the
cliffs; but always without seeing or hearing anything to justify my
superstitions. And so, presently, being determined to give way to no
fancifulness, I avoided the boundary of cliffs, and kept more to that
part which commanded the slope, up and down which we made our journeys
to and from the island below.

Then, it would be near halfway through my time of watching, there came to
me out of the immensity of weed that lay to leeward, a far distant sound
that grew upon my ear, rising and rising into a fearsome screaming and
shrieking, and then dying away into the distance in queer sobs, and so at
last to a note below that of the wi