t for a circumstance that suggested to them
the idea of seeking a still better place for repose.

The land wind was blowing in from the ocean; and, according to the
forecast of Old Bill--a great practical meteorologist,--it promised ere
long to become a gale. It was already sufficiently violent--and chill to
boot--to make the situation on the summit of the dune anything but
comfortable. There was no reason why they should make their couch upon
that exposed prominence. Just on the landward side of the hillock
itself--below, at its base--they perceived a more sheltered situation;
and why not select that spot for their resting place?

There was no reason why they should not. Old Bill proposed it; there was
no opposition offered by his young companions,--and, without further
parley, the four went floundering down the sloping side of the
sand-hill, into the sheltered convexity at its base.

On arriving at the bottom, they found themselves in the narrowest of
ravines. The hillock from which they had descended was but the highest
summit of a long ridge, trending in the same direction as the coast.
Another ridge, of about equal height, ran parallel to this on the
landward side. The bases of the two approached so near, that their
sloping sides formed an angle with each other. On account of the abrupt
acclivity of both, this angle was almost acute, and the ravine between
the two resembled a cavity out of which some great wedge had been
cut,--like a section taken from the side of a gigantic melon.

It was in this re-entrant angle that the castaways found themselves,
after descending the side of the dune, and where they had proposed
spending the remainder of the night.

They were somewhat disappointed on reaching their sleeping-quarters, and
finding them so limited as to space. In the bottom of the ravine there
was not breadth enough for a bed,--even for the shortest of the
party,--supposing him desirous of sleeping in a horizontal position.

There were not six feet of surface--nor even three--that could strictly
be called horizontal. Even longitudinally, the bottom of the "gully" had
a sloping inclination: for the ravine itself tended upwards, until it
became extinguished in the convergence of its inclosing ridges.

On discovering the unexpected "strait" into which they had launched
themselves, our adventurers were for a time nonplussed. They felt
inclined to proceed farther in search of a "better bed," but their
weariness