out of the boat, and neither of the men stirred nor noticed it;
it circled round, and then came sweeping overhead with its strong
wings outspread.

Then I stopped shouting, and sat down on the headland and rested my chin
on my hands and stared. Slowly, slowly, the boat drove past towards
the west. I would have swum out to it, but something--a cold, vague
fear--kept me back. In the afternoon the tide stranded the boat, and left
it a hundred yards or so to the westward of the ruins of the enclosure.
The men in it were dead, had been dead so long that they fell
to pieces when I tilted the boat on its side and dragged them out.
One had a shock of red hair, like the captain of the "Ipecacuanha," and
a dirty white cap lay in the bottom of the boat.

As I stood beside the boat, three of the Beasts came slinking
out of the bushes and sniffing towards me. One of my spasms
of disgust came upon me. I thrust the little boat down the beach
and clambered on board her. Two of the brutes were Wolf-beasts,
and came forward with quivering nostrils and glittering eyes;
the third was the horrible nondescript of bear and bull.
When I saw them approaching those wretched remains, heard them
snarling at one another and caught the gleam of their teeth,
a frantic horror succeeded my repulsion. I turned my back upon them,
struck the lug and began paddling out to sea. I could not bring myself
to look behind me.

I lay, however, between the reef and the island that night,
and the next morning went round to the stream and filled the empty
keg aboard with water. Then, with such patience as I could command,
I collected a quantity of fruit, and waylaid and killed two rabbits
with my last three cartridges. While I was doing this I left
the boat moored to an inward projection of the reef, for fear
of the Beast People.

XXII. THE MAN ALONE.

IN the evening I started, and drove out to sea before a gentle wind
from the southwest, slowly, steadily; and the island grew smaller
and smaller, and the lank spire of smoke dwindled to a finer and
finer line against the hot sunset. The ocean rose up around me,
hiding that low, dark patch from my eyes. The daylight, the trailing
glory of the sun, went streaming out of the sky, was drawn aside
like some luminous curtain, and at last I looked into the blue
gulf of immensity which the sunshine hides, and saw the floating
hosts of the stars. The sea was silent, the sky was silent.
I was alo