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 ship 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.