at the first streak of dawn I moved in again and once
more took up the hopeless survey of the forbidding coast.

Toward noon we discovered a beach, the first we had seen. It was a
narrow strip of sand at the base of a part of the cliff that seemed
lower than any we had before scanned. At its foot, half buried in the
sand, lay great boulders, mute evidence that in a bygone age some
mighty natural force had crumpled Caprona's barrier at this point. It
was Bradley who first called our attention to a strange object lying
among the boulders above the surf.

"Looks like a man," he said, and passed his glasses to me.

I looked long and carefully and could have sworn that the thing I saw
was the sprawled figure of a human being. Miss La Rue was on deck with
us. I turned and asked her to go below. Without a word she did as I
bade. Then I stripped, and as I did so, Nobs looked questioningly at
me. He had been wont at home to enter the surf with me, and evidently
he had not forgotten it.

"What are you going to do, sir?" asked Olson.

"I'm going to see what that thing is on shore," I replied. "If it's a
man, it may mean that Caprona is inhabited, or it may merely mean that
some poor devils were shipwrecked here. I ought to be able to tell from
the clothing which is more near the truth.

"How about sharks?" queried Olson. "Sure, you ought to carry a knoife."

"Here you are, sir," cried one of the men.

It was a long slim blade he offered--one that I could carry between my
teeth--and so I accepted it gladly.

"Keep close in," I directed Bradley, and then I dived over the side and
struck out for the narrow beach. There was another splash directly
behind me, and turning my head, I saw faithful old Nobs swimming
valiantly in my wake.

The surf was not heavy, and there was no undertow, so we made shore
easily, effecting an equally easy landing. The beach was composed
largely of small stones worn smooth by the action of water. There was
little sand, though from the deck of the U-33 the beach had appeared to
be all sand, and I saw no evidences of mollusca or crustacea such as
are common to all beaches I have previously seen. I attribute this to
the fact of the smallness of the beach, the enormous depth of
surrounding water and the great distance at which Caprona lies from her
nearest neighbor.

As Nobs and I approached the recumbent figure farther up the beach, I
was appraised by my nose that whether or not, the