sea and
coming ashore again.

Making for a spot on the right, a hundred yards from her she saw one
coming ashore, swift as an arrow, steering with straight steadfast eyes
and landing with the water cascading from his huge shoulders, whilst on
the left one was putting out to sea in a burst of foam.

Then, of a sudden, all the shore edge bulls got in commotion slithering
about, raising themselves on their flippers and blowing off steam.

A sea elephant was coming towards the beach, moving with a speed thrice
that of any of the others, his head was raised and she could see the
eyes that seemed blazing with wrath or challenge.

Then, as he came thundering on to the rocks, he lifted the echoes with a
roar that resounded for miles along the beach.

All the others had landed in silence.

She did not know that this was a newcomer, a belated bull, held days
behind the arrival of the others by some chance of the sea. Maybe he
had hung fishing off the South Shetlands or the Horn, or beached for
repairs after some sea fight off the Falklands; whatever had held him he
was late.

He came swiftly up the rocks, casting his head from side to side but
unchallenged. There were no females there yet to fight for and they
evidently recognized him as one of the herd and not a stranger. The herd
instinct, without which a nation would be a mob, ruled here and gave the
belated one his place, and after a while of squattering about and
sniffing and blowing he settled down with quieted eyes to rest. He had
reached one of the stopping stages of his life, with the surety with
which he would reach the last, on some desolate beach or reef of the
sea.

The girl watched him. Not only did these new-found companions chase away
loneliness and ghostly fears, but they brought her comfort. They seemed
so sure, sure of food and life and the right to live, so undisturbed; it
was as though she felt the presence of the ghostly shepherd who looks
after the flocks of sea and land and who counts even the sparrows. She
cast her eyes towards the islands and the sea-line; some day a ship would
come and all this would be a dream of the past. She knew it. Her mind
went back over all that she had been saved from--the wreck, the
deathtraps and worst of all--La Touche. It was strange to think that a
man should be worse than the others.

If that fisherman's knife had not been included in the gear of the boat!

It was now, as she sat thinking this and watching the