76 SPORT, TRAVEL, AND ADVENTURE 



busy man envied the calm indifference to the day's 

 doings that he could not find in his heart to disturb. 



' Won't he feel fresh when he does wake ! ' he re- 

 flected. ' He'll be a bit narked at having wasted a 

 whole bloomin' day ! I shouldn't be surprised if he 

 was savage because I didn't call him.' 



When the evening meal was prepared and everything 

 in the tiny hut made orderly, it would be a pleasure for 

 him to wake up and discover that he had been allowed 

 to have his sleep out. 



Ah I but his sleep was very sound and very silent 

 almost too stillful to be natural. 



A touch on his shoulders, saying, ' Andrew, wake up, 

 old fellow I ' 



No movement, no response. His feet cold, cold ! 

 and his chest, too, cold I 



The mate had found his port after stormy seas. His 

 heart, worn out with stress and strain, had failed within 

 him, and all day long his companion thought tenderly 

 of him, making but little noise, thinking that his sleep 

 was the sleep of a day, not the sleep of eternity that no 

 earthly din may disturb. 



The weather was still boisterous, but it was essential 

 to take the body to Bowen, to render unto the authori- 

 ties there conclusive evidence that death had been the 

 result of natural causes. My visitor's nerves were then 

 virile. But the time of stress and strain was at hand. 

 He found himself alone on a remote island, a grim 

 responsibility forced upon him. Awful as the duty 

 was, it had to be courageously faced, and performed 

 as tenderly as might be. Instead of the enjoyment of 

 comfort and rest and the days of busy companionship 

 and revivifying hopes, there was the shock that sudden 



