omfort of it, cutting away the cliff's
shadow as it neared the meridian. . . . The boat, utterly neglected
by us, had floated up, broadside on, with the quiet tide, almost to
our feet. The dog sat on his haunches, waiting and watching for one
or other of us to give sign of life.

"I roused up Farrell. . . . My first thought was for Santa's body,
laid within the boat on the bottom-boards. 'Are we man enough,
between us, to lift her out?' I asked. 'Or shall we moor the boat
and climb for help? . . . There are certainly people on this island,
since this dog must have a master somewhere.'

"'She is a light weight,' said Farrell simply. 'Let us try. . . .
Her soul forgive me for leaving her, even so long as I have, in that
horrible boat!'

"So, weak as we were, we managed to lift Santa's body ashore and
carry it up the few yards of sand beyond what we judged to be a faint
tide-mark, close under the ferns. . . . After this we fetched ashore
the tool-chest and some loose articles that we judged to be
necessary--such as the cooking-pot, binoculars, and a spare coil or
two of rope and a ship's mallet; and Farrell searched the undercliff
for sea-birds' eggs, whilst I gave the boat a cleansing with baler
and sponge, redded her up after a fashion, and finally moored her off
with a shore-line, some twenty yards out on the placid water.
While thus occupied, my mind was wondering what kind of people
inhabited this island, and why they kept such poor watch. . . .
We had run in openly in daylight, and yet it would seem that only
this dog had spied us.

"If they were savages, why, then, I had only my revolver with a fair
number of cartridges. . . . Some of my stock I had blazed away during
the last two days in vain attempts upon the life of the sea-birds
that ever wheeled out of fair range. The tool-chest, indeed,
contained a shot-gun, or the parts of one: but I had never pieced
them together, for the simple reason that all the cartridges
belonging to it had, through Grimalson's careless stowage, been
soaked and spoilt during the night of the gale. . . . Somehow, I
could not mentally connect savages with the ownership of this dog.
But the day wore on, and still no one hailed us from the cliffs or
the green slope.

"Now I must tell you that the boat's locker yet held a chunk or
two--less than a pound--of brined pork, hard as wood and salt as the
Dead Sea, that none of the crew at the last had a thought to boil in
the sea wate