"I'm sure He did, and all our lives we'll thank Him for it," and so the sight of the dead but put a keener edge on their gratitude for life and their joy in one another.
The next big storm washed the point clean again. All had gone, wreckage, bodies, everything, and the great pile beyond bristled higher than ever.
"Do you notice anything strange?" he asked her, as they stood looking out at it.
"There seems more of it."
"And not a bird to be seen. They've all gone for the winter, I expect. We shall not see them again till next year."
"I am glad. They are evil things. Our Paradise is sweeter without them," and he kissed her for the word.
The weird forces of the gales, however, afforded them many surprises.
Tramping round the further end of their lake one day, they saw changes in the great stretch of sand that ran out of sight towards the eastern point. What had been a level plain was scored and furrowed as by a mighty ploughshare. It was like a rough sea whose tumbling waves had in an instant been turned into sand—league-long grooves with high-piled ridges between, and in the hollows the watery sun glinted briefly here and there on shining white objects sticking out of the sand.
"Bones!" said Wulf in surprise, as they stood looking into the first hollow, and he jumped down and picked up a human skull.
"Horrid!" said Avice. "And there's another, and another over there. It's a regular grave-yard."