at.

Overcome with fatigue, he dropped into an uneasy doze, painful fancies
filling his brain. How long he had thus remained he could not tell,
when, on opening his eyes, they fell on a figure standing by the
half-finished grave. His disordered imagination made him fancy that it
was one of those he was about to bury who, recovering, had regained his
feet. Or could it be a spirit?

His eyes dilated as he gazed. The person, after looking into the grave
for a few seconds, turned round and went towards where the bodies lay
and then knelt down by the side of one of them. Lord Reginald, not
seeing him, as he was concealed by the slope of the beach from where he
lay, fancied as he gradually recovered his senses that he must have been
subjected to some hallucination, and resolved to finish his task.

"Come, Nep," he said, rising, "we must finish the work, terrible as it
is!" What was his surprise to find that his dog had gone? He made his
way back to the grave, keeping his head turned in an opposite direction
from the bodies, unwilling to look at them from the sickening feeling
which came over him when he did so. Descending into the pit he had
formed, he began to throw out the sand. While thus employed he heard a
voice close to him say--

"Shall I help you?"

His first impulse was to spring out of the grave and express the joy he
felt that one of his crew had escaped, but on looking up he saw Richard
Hargrave standing near, with a piece of wood similar to the one with
which he was employed. At first his feelings softened towards his
enemy, for so he regarded the young seaman, but the next instant he
fancied that he detected a look of scorn in his countenance. Still, he
wanted to get the work done, and alone he could not accomplish it. He
therefore answered, "Yes, you may fall to, for it is more than one man
alone can do."

Without exchanging another word, Dick leapt down into the pit and began
shovelling out the sand in a far more effectual way than Lord Reginald
had done. When the grave was of sufficient size, Dick got out and
immediately went towards one of the bodies, beckoning his companion to
assist him in carrying it to its last resting-place. Lord Reginald
hesitated, but when Dick began to drag the body by the shoulders he took
it up by the feet. One by one three of the other bodies were carried to
the grave. Lord Reginald was about to lift up the feet of Ben Rudall,
when Dick exclaimed--

"No, n