"We will look for them," said The Girl confidently.
"Oh, ay, ye can look for 'em, and mebbe sometime a boat'll come ashore ready-made, or one that we can make shift to patch up. Meantime we've got all we want here and there's plenty more for the getting out yonder. So be content, say I, miss, for by rights the Doctor and me ought to be two clean-picked white skeletons out there on the pile, an' you ought to be a little white corp tumbling about on yon spar for the birds to peck at."
"Are there skeletons out there?" she asked with a shiver.
"Heaps."
"I think I will not go. I have seen so much of Death. I would forget it for a time."
"Ye'll meet him sure if ye try to get across from here in any boat we could build," growled the mate, and filled his pipe and his pannikin.
XXIX
Next morning Macro went off as usual to the wreck-pile, and Miss Drummond set to work on her dressmaking. Wulfrey hoisted up out of the hold for her such pieces of silk and linen as she required, and scoured a couple of the smallest needles with sand till they were usable. Then, with the sharpest knife he could find among their stock, he cut out on the deck, under her direction, various lengths and designs which to him were meaningless, but replete with possibilities from her point of view.
But when, presently, she saw him preparing to go ashore for water and rabbits, she threw down her needle and said, "I will go also. You will not mind?"
"On the contrary, I shall mind very much. I shall feel honoured by your company. It is a pleasure to have someone to talk to again," and he helped her down on to the raft, and thought how much less interesting shoes were than little naked feet.