ioned by those in authority."

CHAPTER XXIX.

CAST AWAY.

Tom Lewson had been an hour in camp before he commenced the story of
his wanderings, and at first he spoke slowly and falteringly, lying
propped up on one elbow, with the lamplight on his worn face.

"We broke an oar coming off the beach that night, and it kind of
crippled us," he said. "Twice she nearly went back again in the surf,
and I don't quite know how we pulled her off. Anyway, one of us was
busy heaving out the water that broke into her. It was Jake, I think,
and he seemed kind of silly. Once we saw a boat hove up on a sea, but
we lost her in the spray, and a long while after we saw the schooner.
Just then a comber that broke on board most hove us over, and when we
had dodged the next two there wasn't a sign of her. After that we knew
that we were done, and we just tried to keep her head-to and ease her
to the seas."

He stopped a moment, and looked round at the others with troubled eyes,
as though trying to marshal uncertain memories, for this was a simple
sailorman, who contented himself with the baldest narrative. Still,
two of those who heard him could fill in the things he had not
mentioned--the mad lurching of the half-swamped boat, the tense
struggle with the oars each time a big frothing comber forged out of
the darkness, and the savage desperation of the drenched and
half-frozen men cast away with the roaring surf to lee of them and
their enemies watching upon the hammered beach.

"It blew hard that night," he added. "Somehow she lived through it,
but there wasn't a sign of the island when morning came. Nothing but
the combers and the flying haze. Guess the wind must have shifted a
few points and drove us by the end of it. Then we found Jake had his
head laid open by a sealing club. The sea was getting longer, and as
we were too played out to hold her to it we got her away before it, and
somehow she didn't roll over. I think it was next day, though it might
have been longer, when we fetched another island. She just washed up
on it, and one of the others pulled me out. There wasn't a sign of
anybody on the beach, but there were plenty of skinned holluschackie
seals on the slope behind it, and that was fortunate for us."

"You struck nobody on the island?" enquired Wyllard.

"We didn't," said Lewson simply. "The Russians must have sent a vessel
to take off the killers after the last drive of the season a day or two
b