Part 29 (1/2)

As they drew close to it it enlarged and other things shewed. It was the top of a skull belonging to a skeleton tucked away in a little hollow as though it were sheltering from the wind.

Rags of clothing still hung to it and the boots were there still that had once belonged to it.

”Wonder what did that poor chap in?” said Raft as he stood looking at it. ”Wrecked, most likely and lost himself--well, it's a sign folk have been here, anyhow.”

He gauged the measure of the desolation around by his words. Here a skeleton did not make the desolation more desolate; on the contrary, it proved that folk had been here.

So the girl felt.

”He'd have been blown away by this only for that hollow he's in,” said Raft, ”well, he's out of his troubles whoever he was and whatever s.h.i.+p he hailed from.”

”We can't bury him,” said she.

”He's buried,” said Raft.

He had summed up Kerguelen in two words and there was almost a trace of bitterness in his voice. Beyond the remark that it was a brute of a coast he had never grumbled against the place or abused it or the Almighty for making it, as many a man has done; and now at the summit of things two words sufficed him.

Then, leaving the skeleton to the wind and the sky and the countless ages, they turned and went on their way west.

CHAPTER x.x.x

THE BAY

It took them till dusk to reach the foot of the western rise of ground; here they slept under a rock, continuing their way next morning, climbing till they reached the summit of the rise and keeping their course along the edge of a cliff that fell a sheer three hundred feet to the sh.o.r.e below.

Sometimes Raft peeped over the cliff edge and once the girl drew close and looked, too, dizzy with the height, made more dreadful by the gulls flying far below.

At noon, far ahead of them, they saw something that made them pause; a little mound. As they drew closer they knew. It was another cache, a cache made of heaped earth and loose stones with about a foot of sign post protruding from it. The post had been broken off in some storm and blown away.

”There'll be stuff under there,” said Raft, ”and if we have to go back it'll come in handy. It's a pointer to the bay anyhow; there must be some landin' place near here, we've only got to keep on.”

They sat down and rested and had some food, eating as much as they wanted now that they had a store to depend on. They had drunk twice that morning from pot holes still half-filled with the rain of a few days ago and they had no need of water--it is the one thing a man never needs in Kerguelen. They were in good spirits; the haunting fear that their provisions might not be enough to last them for the return journey was gone; also, if the bay were near, they could remain now some time, even take up their quarters here to wait on the chance of a s.h.i.+p.

The idea came to them to make a burrow into the cache, now, working with the harpoon and their hands, and for the purpose of verifying the contents; but they put it away, the desire to get on drove them like a whip and they went on, halting towards dusk and sleeping in a hollow that gave them shelter from the wind that was blowing from the south.

Towards dawn the wind changed to the west and at the first rays of light Raft awoke, sat up and sniffed. Then he laid his hand on the girl's shoulder.

”Smell that!” cried he.

She sat up, her eyes half-blind with sleep.

”Smell the wind!” said Raft.

She turned her face to the west. On the wind was coming the ghost of a smell, faint and horrible and soul-searching.

”That's a s.h.i.+p,” said Raft.

”A s.h.i.+p!”