them in fancies and philosophies. And occasionally they would
look up at the starlight and the rock and see the space guarded
by the two cross-hilted swords, which looked like two black
crosses at either end of a grave.

In this primitive and Homeric truce the week passed by; it
consisted almost entirely of eating, drinking, smoking, talking,
and occasionally singing. They wrote their records and cast loose
their bottle. They never ascended to the ominous plateau; they
had never stood there save for that single embarrassed minute
when they had had no time to take stock of the seascape or the
shape of the land. They did not even explore the island; for
MacIan was partly concerned in prayer and Turnbull entirely
concerned with tobacco; and both these forms of inspiration can
be enjoyed by the secluded and even the sedentary. It was on a
golden afternoon, the sun sinking over the sea, rayed like the
very head of Apollo, when Turnbull tossed off the last half-pint
from the emptied Wilkinsonian bottle, hurled the bottle into the
sea with objectless energy, and went up to where his sword stood
waiting for him on the hill. MacIan was already standing heavily
by his with bent head and eyes reading the ground. He had not
even troubled to throw a glance round the island or the horizon.
But Turnbull being of a more active and birdlike type of mind did
throw a glance round the scene. The consequence of which was that
he nearly fell off the rock.

On three sides of this shelly and sandy islet the sea stretched
blue and infinite without a speck of land or sail; the same as
Turnbull had first seen it, except that the tide being out it
showed a few yards more of slanting sand under the roots of the