ew, is in it and that all these
gentry, separate prowlers and parties, are making for the _Queen
Mary_, the last large Channel boat sunk and the nearest to this part
of the coast. Think, what a scoop for marauders!"

"Let's push on!" cried the young man, who was now uneasy at the
thought that he might fail in the mission which Isabel had allotted
to him.

One by one, five other tracks coming from the north--from Eastbourne,
the Indian thought--joined the first. In the end they made such an
intricate tangle that Antonio had to give up counting them. However,
the footprints of the rubber soles and those of the four horses
continued to appear in places.

They marched on for some time. The landscape showed little variety,
revealing sandy plains and hills, stretches of mud, rivers and pools,
of water left by the sea and filled with fish which had taken refuge
there. It was all monotonous, without beauty or majesty, but strange,
as anything that has never been seen before or anything that is
shapeless must needs be strange.

"We are getting near," said Simon.

"Yes," said the Indian, "the tracks are coming in from all directions;
and here even are marauders returning northwards, laden with their
swag."

It was now four in the afternoon. Not a rift was visible in the
ceiling of motionless clouds. Rain fell in great, heavy drops. For
the first time they heard the overhead roar of an aeroplane flying
above the insuperable obstacle. . . . They followed a depression in
the ground, succeeded by hills. And suddenly a bulky object rose
before them. It was the _Queen Mary_. She was bent in two, almost like
a broken toy. And nothing was more lamentable, nothing gave a more
dismal impression of ruin and destruction than those two lifeless
halves of a once so powerful thing.

There was no one near the wreck.

Simon experienced an extreme emotion on standing before what was left
of the big boat which he had seen wrecked so terribly. He could not
approach it without that sort of pious horror which one would feel on
entering a mighty tomb haunted by the shades of those whom we once
knew. He thought of the three clergymen and the French family and the
captain; and he shuddered at remembering the moment when, with all the
strength of his will and all the imperious power of his love, he had
dragged Isabel towards the abyss.

A halt was called. Simon left his horse with the Indians and went
forward, accompanied by Antonio. He ran d