"Better take a day off. You've been working too hard."
"Not me. I cannot sit here while all yon stuff's crying aloud to be picked up."
"Well, I'll be on the look-out, and come across to give you a hand from the spit when you get there."
"I'll lash you up a bit float that'll bring you over, before I go. And you'll mebbe have some food ready against I get back. It's hungry work out there."
"I'll be ready for you. If you load up too heavily you'll not get back at all."
"I'll see to that. Wind's fair, it'll bring me home all right."
So Wulfrey had the day to himself, and had time, which the labours of the previous days had not permitted him, to consider the situation in all its aspects.
So far they had been marvellously favoured, without doubt. Ten days ago they were swinging up and down on the galley-roof inside the cage of the dead ship's ribs, possessed of nothing but their bare lives, and those but doubtfully. And here they were, provided for in every respect, with comforts which shipwrecked men had no right to expect, and with unlimited further stores to draw upon. They could live without fear....
But what a life, after all. Eating, drinking, sleeping,—raking over the wreckage for possible plunder that was useless to them,—rambling among the rabbits and the sandhills. Quarrelling in time, maybe. Perhaps it was a good thing there was a ship for each of them.
He was not himself of a quarrelsome disposition. The mate, he thought, might be difficult to put up with if he took a crooked turn. But it would be the height of folly for two men, bound together by ill-fortune, and to this bare bank for all time, to fall out. Every circumspection within his power he resolved to exercise, and so far, indeed, his companion had given him no cause to mistrust or doubt him.