t probably be much
affected by the prayers, he laughed off the fancy, yet did not quite
like to think, after all, that the prayers were of no use. Keith's
religion, however, was in the primary rocks.

Far down the beach they came upon a wreck, an old and long hidden relic
of the past. The low sand-bluff had caved away suddenly and left a
clean new side, where, imbedded in the lower part, they saw a ponderous
mast. "An old Spanish galleon," said Keith, stooping to examine the
remains. "I know it by the curious bolts. They ran ashore here,
broadside on, in one of those sudden tornadoes they have along this
coast once in a while, I presume. Singular! This was my very place for
lying in the sun and letting the blaze scorch me with its clear
scintillant splendor. I never imagined I was lying on the bones of this
old Spaniard."

"God rest the souls of the sailors," said the Sister, making the sign
of the cross.

"They have been in--wherever they are, let us say, for about three
centuries now," observed Keith, "and must be used to it, good or bad."

"Nay; but purgatory, senor."

"True. I had forgotten that," said Keith.

One morning there came up a dense, soft, southern-sea fog, "The kind
you can cut with a knife," Carrington said. It lasted for days,
sweeping out to sea at night on the land breeze, and lying in a gray
bank low down on the horizon, and then rolling in again in the morning
enveloping the water and the island in a thick white cloud which was
not mist and did not seem damp even, so freshly, softly salt was the
feeling it gave to the faces that went abroad in it. Carrington and
Keith, of course, must needs be out in it every moment of the time.
They walked down the beach for miles in the fog, hearing the muffled
sound of the near waves, but not seeing them. They sailed in the fog,
not knowing whither they went, and they drifted out at sunset and
watched the land breeze lift it, roll it up, and carry it out to sea,
where distant ships on the horizon line, bound southward, and nearer
ones, sailing northward with the Gulf stream, found themselves
enveloped for the night and bothered by their old and baffling foe.
They went over to the reef every morning, these two, and bathed in the
fog, coming back by sense of feeling, as it were, and landing not
infrequently a mile below or above the light-house; then what appetites
they had for breakfast. And if it was not ready, they roamed about
roaring like young lions.