A dozen yards more brought him to the side of the stark form; he bent over it—and remained bent as though petrified with astonishment. When the others had reached him and looked, their voices went from them in a cry of amazement:
"The Huntsman!"
And the Huntsman's gigantic figure it was, sea-drenched and wave-battered, kelp snarled about his feet, starfish tangled in his hair. As he had lain upon the rock that winter day, so he lay here upon the sand,—flat on his back with his hands clasped over his breast; though now his eyes were closed, and neither sound nor motion was on his blue lips.
Doubting their senses, the explorers stared at him and then up and down the shore. Never was scene more yawningly empty; between the sweep of sand and the stretch of water he lay as though fallen from the sky.
CHAPTER VI
ABOUT THE STRANGE FIND ON KEEL CAPE
"I would give much if he had not died until he had told us how he came hither," Gard remarked, presently.
"And what he was employing himself about in the north of Vinland when he set out to explore the country south of it!" Brand cried; while the Glib One added: