upon the
ice where it joined the shore, and when Caius was out with a large band
of men upon the extreme edge of the solid ice, a large fragment broke
loose. There were some hundred seals upon this bit of ice, which were
being butchered one by one in barbarous fashion, and so busy were the
men with their work that they merely looked at the widening passage of
gray water and continued to kill the beasts that they had hedged round
in a murderous ring. It was the duty of those on the shore to bring
boats if they were needed. The fragment on which they were could not
float far because the sea outside was full of loose ice, and, as it
happened, when the dusk fell the chasm of water between them and the
shore was not too broad to be jumped easily, for the ice, having first
moved seaward, now moved landward with the tide.

For two or three days Caius lent a hand at killing and skinning the
gentle-eyed animals. It was not that he did not feel some disgust at the
work; but it meant bread to the men he was with, and he might as well
help them. It was an experience, and, above all, it was distraction.
When the women had seen him at work they welcomed him with demonstrative
joy to the hot meals which they prepared twice a day for the hunters.
Caius was not quite sure what composed the soups and stews of which he
partook, but they tasted good enough.

When he had had enough of the seal-hunt it took him all the next day to
cleanse the clothes he had worn from the smell of the fat, and he felt
himself to be effeminate in the fastidiousness that made him do it.

During all these days the houses and roads of the island were almost
completely deserted, except that Caius supposed that, after the first
holiday, the maids who lived with Madame Le Maitre were kept to their
usual household tasks, and that their mistress worked with them.

At last, one day when Caius was coming from a house on one of the hills
which he had visited because there was in it a little mortal very new to
this world, he saw Madame Le Maitre riding up the snowy road that he
was descending. He felt glad, at the first sight of her, that he was no
longer a youth but had fully come to man's estate, and had attained to
that command of nerve and conquest over a beating heart that is the
normal heritage of manhood. This thought came to him because he was so
vividly reminded of the hour in which he had once before sought an
interview with this lady--even holding her hand i