“Here?” said Bart, as they reached a smooth spot, where a clump of palms made a slight shade.
“Yes,” was the laconic reply.
“No tools,” said Bart, half to himself; “but it don’t matter, Abe, old lad. I can scratch a grave for you, and cut your name arter with my knife on one o’ them trees.”
He laid his load tenderly down upon the sand, in the shadiest spot, and then, stripping off his jacket and rolling up his sleeves over his muscle-knotted arms, he began to scrape the sand away rapidly, and soon made a long, narrow trench, though it was not easy work, for the soft, fine, dry sand flowed slowly, as if it were a liquid, back into the trench.
“That will do,” said Jack, suddenly rising from where he had been kneeling by Abel’s side.
Bart ceased his task without another word, and at a sign from his companion reverently went to the foot of the canvas-covered figure, while Jack went to the head, and they lifted it into the shallow trench.
“And never said so much as a prayer over it!” muttered Bart to himself, as he rapidly scooped back the sand with his hands, till the lower part of his old mate’s body was covered, leaving the head instinctively to the last.
He was then about to heap the sand over gravewise, but Jack stopped him, and, taking a piece of wreck wood, drew it along the place so as to leave the sand level.
“What are you going to do?” he said, sternly, as Bart drew his knife.
“Cut a hay and a dee on that there tree,” said the man, shortly.