of the boat stood out to
sea, and he was left alone on the island.

Yes, there was no doubt of it--he was quite alone; and he had nothing
to help him except the knife which his comrade had purposely dropped
on the ledge of the window. For some minutes he was too stunned by the
treachery of his friend to think about anything at all, but after a
while he shook himself awake, and determined that he would manage to
keep alive somehow, if it were only to revenge himself.

So he put the knife in his pocket and went off to a part of the island
which was not so bare as the rest, and had a small grove of trees.
From one of these he cut himself a bow, which he strung with a piece
of cord that had been left lying about the huts.

When this was ready the young man ran down to the shore and shot one
or two sea-birds, which he plucked and cooked for supper.

In this way the months slipped by, and Christmas came round again.
The evening before, the youth went down to the rocks and into the
copse, collecting all the drift wood the sea had washed up or the gale
had blown down, and he piled it up in a great stack outside the door,
so that he might not have to fetch any all the next day. As soon as
his task was done, he paused and looked out towards the mainland,
thinking of Christmas Eve last year, and the merry dance they had had.
The night was still and cold, and by the help of the Northern Lights
he could almost see across to the opposite coast, when, suddenly, he
noticed a boat, which seemed steering straight for the island. At
first he could hardly stand for joy, the chance of speaking to another
man was so delightful; but as the boat drew near there was something,
he could not tell what, that was different from the boats which he had
been used to all his life, and when it touched the shore he saw that
the people that filled it were beings of another world than ours. Then
he hastily stepped behind the wood stack, and waited for what might
happen next.

The strange folk one by one jumped on to the rocks, each bearing a
load of something that they wanted. Among the women he remarked two
young girls, more beautiful and better dressed than any of the rest,
carrying between them two great baskets full of provisions. The young
man peeped out cautiously to see what all this crowd could be doing
inside the tiny hut, but in a moment he drew back again, as the girls
returned, and looked about as if they wanted to find out what sort of
a