eventually
flung up on the beach, with the life so nearly battered out of him that
it was just as much as either of them could do to crawl far enough up
the beach to get beyond the reach of the deadly backwash, when they both
collapsed, and so lay senseless until they were revived by the rays of
the morning sun.

There were, however, two still missing, namely, the cook and the cabin
boy. The former of these we found, quite dead, shut up in the stranded
galley; but exactly what became of the cabin boy we never knew, for we
never found a trace of him, alive or dead. We buried the body of the
cook that same evening in the sand, using fragments of splintered
planking wherewith to dig the grave, after which we flung ourselves down
upon the dry sand above high-water mark, and, completely worn out, slept
soundly until the following morning.

We awoke shortly after sunrise, to find the weather gloriously fine, the
Trade wind again blowing briskly, and, to our very great surprise, the
wreck but a few yards from the shore, in very little over two feet of
water. But a single glance around us at the greatly altered appearance
of the beach, as compared with what we had seen of it on the previous
day, sufficed to explain the apparent mystery. The tide had something
to do with it, of course, for it chanced that the schooner had come
ashore on the very top of the highest spring tide: but it was perfectly
evident that, apart from this, the water in the bay had been piled up to
quite an unusual height by the gale; hence when the storm had subsided
and the ocean had once more found its normal level the wreck was left
little short of high and dry. This was quite a stroke of good luck for
us; for we subsequently discovered that the range of tide in that
particular part of the ocean was so exceedingly small that, even at
high-water, we were able to wade right out to the wreck, while the
wreckage which had been cast ashore on the previous day was now lying
high and dry far up the beach, and quite beyond the reach of the
ordinary tides. We were thus saved a vast amount of trouble, for
although, when we began salvage operations, it was still necessary to do
a certain amount of rafting in order to convey heavy articles ashore,
light articles, such as we could carry, could be taken thither by the
simple process of lowering them over the side to one of our companions,
who then carried them ashore in his arms or on his shoulders.

But the