He was coming along back now carrying something he had picked up amongst the rocks. It was a crab.
A great satisfactory two pound crab bound up in kelp ribbon so craftily that it could neither bite nor escape. He put it on the sand for her to look at before taking it off to boil.
The sun was hot and as he stood whilst she admired his prize: “Don’t you feel the sun to your head?” asked he.
“No,” she replied, “I like it. I had a hat—a sou’wester but it’s in a cave away down the beach. There’s a dead man there.”
“A dead man?” said Raft.
“Yes. I killed him.”
“Killed him?”
“It was partly accident. He was one of the sailors. He was a bad man. The other sailor got lost and never came back and I was left alone with this man. He nearly frightened me to death.”
“Swab,” said Raft.
“Then one night he crawled into my cave in the dark and I struck out with the knife and it killed him—he’s lying there now. I didn’t mean to kill him, but he frightened me.”