had already selected as the most suitable spot for a camp.

It was toward this party that Mr Perry and I now directed our steps;
and when we had joined it the skipper, picking out a dozen of the most
handy men, gave them instructions to provide themselves with tools of
some sort suitable for the purpose of digging a couple of graves in the
loose, yielding sand above the level of high-water mark; and while they
were doing this, under my supervision, my companion wandered away by
himself in search of a suitable site for the graves. As a matter of
fact there was very little in the nature of choice, the entire spit, or
at least that portion of it which we occupied, consisting of loose sand,
sparsely covered, along the ridge and far a few yards on either side of
it, with a kind of creeper with thick, tough, hairy stems and large,
broad leaves, the upper surface of which bristled with hairy spicules
about a quarter of an inch long. This plant, it was evident, bound the
otherwise loose drifts and into a sufficiently firm condition to resist
the perpetual scouring action of the wind; it was in this portion of the
spit, therefore, that Mr Perry gave orders for the two graves to be
dug; and presently my little gang of twelve were busily engaged in
scooping out two holes, some twenty feet apart, to serve as graves.
They were obliged to work with such tools as came to hand, and these
consisted of splintered pieces of plank, the boats' balers, and some
wooden buckets that had come ashore.

Under such circumstances the task of excavation was distinctly
difficult, the more so that the sand ran back into the holes almost as
fast as it was scooped up and thrown out; but at length, by dint of
strenuous labour, a depth of some three feet was reached just as the
sun's rim touched the western horizon and flung a trail of blood athwart
the tumble of waters that lay between. Then, the exigencies of the
occasion admitting of no further delay, the task was suspended; all
hands knocked off work; and, the bodies having meanwhile been enclosed
in rough coffins very hastily put together by the carpenter and his
mate, we all fell in; the gig's crew shouldered the late captain's
coffin, while six of his mates acted as bearers to the other dead man;
and, with Mr Perry leading the way and reading the burial service from
a prayer-book, which it appeared he always carried about with him, we
marched, slowly, solemnly, and bare-headed, up the slope of t