d not know which to congratulate herself most upon, the
wood of the wreck or the cache. Then came the dismal thought of winter,
begotten of the idea of fires. It was the middle of August. Winter lay
ahead. If no ship came to take them off what would their life be like
during the winter months? Imagine this place at Christmas, covered
perhaps with snow! The gloom of this idea pursued her for a mile or more
till all of a sudden she stopped and laughed aloud at her own
stupidity. It was not autumn, it was spring. They were south of the line
and summer lay before them, not winter. That gloomy ghost, fear of the
Future, which spoils so many men's lives in Civilization, had tricked
her and made her miserable and as she cast it from her and pursued her
way she said to herself again: "I will not think, here the person who
thinks and broods is lost."

When she reached the caves the men had not yet returned; leaving the
slat of wood leaning against the cliff she came down to the boat and
stood for a moment looking at the sea. The tide was far out now and
coming in again, the sea had fallen to a gentle glassy swell and the
treacherous wind had died away to a faint breeze. Out there where the
waves were coming in and at the limit of the sands rocks were uncovered,
shaggy, black rocks that seemed covered with fur. She came down to them
and found that the fur was a coating of mussels. Here was another find.
She began to pick them and then, running back to the cave for the baling
tin, filled it to the brim, and placed it in the boat. Having done this
she sat down with her back to the boat to rest and wait for the men.

They ought to have returned by this. The thought that some disaster had
happened to them came to her and tried to creep into her mind, but she
drove it out promptly, stamped on it and began to think of how they
would cook the mussles. They would make a fire with the slat she had
brought back, it was tarred and would burn finely, with that and some
of the bottom boards of the boat, unless Bompard could be persuaded to
go and cut some wood from the wreckage three miles away. Then she
thought how fortunate it was that men smoked. La Touche had a Swedish
match box nearly full of matches and Bompard had a tinder box, one of
the sort that makes a spark by the striking of a wheel against a flint.

Then she yawned.

She had been in the open air since early dawn and it was now noon. She
was not tired, but she was filled with