"Quite sure. I watched him out of sight. Besides, I am sure he had to go."
"Then let us go the opposite way, as far as we can, and we'll stop out all day long and behave like children. I'm going to walk in the water," and she kicked off her shoes and lifted her blanket skirt and tripped along in the lip of the tide, and he did the same, enjoying her enjoyment.
A watery sun shone feebly through a thin gray sky, the air was still heavy with moisture, the water in which they were walking was warmer than that of the lake. On that side, the island curved like the concave side of a great half-moon. The pale yellow sand stretched on and on as far as their eyes could reach.
"I would like to bathe," said she exuberantly.
"Wait till we get beyond the end of our lake, then you can take this side and I'll go across to the other. You won't go out too far? There may be under-currents that would carry you out."
"I'll be very careful. And you must not come back for an hour... Oh, what are those? ... Dead men?"
In a tiny dent in the long sweep of the curve, made by the sandhills running almost down to the water, were half a dozen dark objects lying on the dry sand and looking for all the world like dead bodies. He had never seen any jetsam of size on that side. The drive of the storms and drift of the currents landed everything on the western spits and banks. Still there was no knowing.
"Wait here!" he said, and set off towards them. And she followed close at his heels.
But before they had gone many paces, one of the bodies set itself suddenly in motion and began to shuffle towards the water.
"Seals," said Wulf, who had never set eyes on a live one in his life, but had a general idea of what they were like.