hat followed, and the sullenness with which Perdosa
readdressed himself to his work, was significant enough of Captain
Selover's past relations with the men.

And how we did clean her! We stripped her of every stitch and sliver
until she floated high, an empty hull, even her spars and running
rigging ashore. I understood now the crew's grumbling. We literally
went at her with a nail brush.

Captain Selover took charge of us when we had reached this period.
He and the Nigger and Perdosa had long since finished the installation
of the permanent camp. They had built us huts from the wreck, collecting
stateroom doors for the sides, and hatches for the roofs, huge and
solid, with iron rings in them. The bronze and iron ventilation
gratings to the doors gave us glimpses of the coast through fretwork;
the rich inlaying of woods surrounded us. We set up on a solid rock
the galley stove--with its rails to hold the cooking pots from
upsetting, in a sea way. In it we burned the debris of the wreck, all
sorts of wood, some sweet and aromatic and spicy as an incensed
cathedral. I have seen the Nigger boiling beans over a blaze of sandal
wood fragrant as an Eastern shop.

First we scrubbed the _Laughing Lass_, then we painted her, and
resized and tarred her standing rigging, resized and rove her running
gear, slushed her masts, finally careened her and scraped and painted
her below.

When we had quite finished, we had the anchor chain dealt out to us
in fathoms, and scraped, pounded and polished that. These were indeed
days full of labour.

Being busy from morning until night we knew but little of what was
about us. We saw the open sea and the waves tumbling over the reef
outside. We saw the headlands, and the bow of the bay and the surf
with its watching seals and the curve of yellow sands. We saw the
sweep of coast and the downs and the strange huts we had built out
of departed magnificence. And that was all; that constituted our world.

In the evening sometimes we lit a big bonfire, sailor fashion, just
at the edge of the beach. There we sat at ease and smoked our pipes
in silence, too tired to talk. Even Handy Solomon's song was still.
Outside the circle of light were mysterious things--strange wavings
of white hands, bendings of figures, callings of voices, rustling of
feet. We knew them for the surf and the wind in the grasses: but they
were not the less mysterious for that.

Logically Captain Selover and I should have