A loud call from West brought us to a little strip of beach on the right of our stranded boat.
Three corpses lay upon the stony soil, that of Hearne, that of Martin Holt, and that of one of the Falklands men.
Of the thirteen who had gone with the sealing-master, there remained only these three, who had evidently been dead some days.
What had become of the ten missing men? Had their bodies been carried out to sea?
We searched all along the coast, into the creeks, and between the outlying rocks, but in vain. Nothing was to be found, no traces of a camp, not even the vestiges of a landing.
“Their boat,” said William Guy, “must have been struck by a drifting iceberg. The rest of Hearne’s companions have been drowned, and only these three bodies have come ashore, lifeless.”
“But,” asked the boatswain, “how is the state the boat is in to be explained?”
“And especially,” added West, “the disappearance of all the iron?”
“Indeed,” said I, “it looks as though every bit had been violently torn off.”
Leaving the Paracuta in the charge of two men, we again took our way to the interior, in order to extend our search over a wider expanse.