Yet, what may be mine?"

He rested for some moments, gazing with a sort of fascination on the
dead body, unwilling to cover it up for ever from view. "It must be
done!" he said at length, and he began to shovel in the sand, a task
which was very quickly accomplished.

"Now I am all alone, the sole inhabitant of this island. That, however,
would be better than finding it peopled by a savage tribe, who would
either kill me or make me work for them as a slave. Had I the strength,
I would build a tomb of rock over him, but he'll rest well enough
without it. I suppose there are no creatures which will come and dig
him up."

He would gladly after this have rested in his cave, for the rays of the
sun, now high in the heavens, beat down with intense force on his
unprotected head. At the same time, the pangs of hunger reminded him
that he must go in search of more substantial food than cocoanuts would
afford. He had heard that turtles laid their eggs on the sandy beaches
of these islands, but whether he should find them at this time of the
year, or whether the young turtles had been hatched and crawled away, he
was utterly ignorant. As he walked along the shore, he carefully
examined the sand, in the hopes of finding some mounds or the marks of
turtles' feet to show where their eggs had been deposited, but not an
indication of any sort could he discover.

"I shall have to depend upon shell-fish," he said to himself; "there
must be numbers sticking to the rocks, and I must try and get them off
with my knife. I wish that I had some fishing-hooks and lines. By
scrambling out to the end of a reef I might very likely catch as many
fish as I require, but as I have not the hooks and lines, I must manage
with what I can get." He sighed as he felt his helplessness. On
looking along the beach he saw it covered with pieces of wreck as far as
the eye could reach. He might at all events find something useful among
the articles thrown up. He had not got far when he caught sight of a
human form surging up and down, close to the beach. It might be some
person who, having clung on to a piece of the wreck during the night,
was attempting to reach the shore. He rushed forward to assist the man
to land, but scarcely had he seized an arm than he saw that it was that
of a dead body. He did not, however, let go his hold, but dragged it up
on the beach.

"I must bury the poor fellow, at all events," he observed, looking at
the cou