“Under the deodars,” suggested Sturgess promptly.
“Yes, I suppose so. But we must make haste.”
“If you ask me to put up any sort of hustle, I’ll crack into small fragments,” said Sturgess, rising to his feet slowly and stiffly.
But this young American—a typical New Yorker in every inch—was blessed with a valiant heart. He helped Maseden to break and cut small branches of the fragrant pines, and pile them beneath the largest tree they could find on a comparatively level piece of ground above high-water mark. The two girls were half carried to this soft couch, which invited sharp comparison with the wet, slimy rock of the previous night.
Despite their protests, they were wrapped in the now dry ship’s flag and the poncho, while the men covered themselves with the oilskins, the coat which Sturgess had found on the reef coming in very useful for Maseden.
Then they slept. And how they slept! The mere fact that they had eaten a quantity of good food induced utter weariness and exhaustion.
During the night it rained heavily, and the tide pounded fiercely on the boulders only a few feet below their resting-place. But they hardly moved, and certainly paid no heed.
Maseden was awakened by a veritable cascade of water on his face; the tree, after the manner of its kind, though shooting the rain generally off its layers of branches, now in full summer foliage, provided occasional channels through which the torrent poured as from a spout, and he was stretched beneath one. He swore softly, saw that the others were undisturbed, moved his position slightly, and fell sound asleep again.
As for rising betimes to catch a seal, it was broad daylight when he shook off the almost overpowering desire to go on sleeping.