“Perhaps he never knew her value until then,” I suggested.

“I wish we knew her value now,” exclaimed Nares.  “However, I don’t want to depress you; I’m sorry for you, Mr. Dodd; I know how bothering it must be to you; and the best I can say’s this:  I haven’t taken much time getting down, and now I’m here I mean to work this thing in proper style.  I just want to put your mind at rest:  you shall have no trouble with me.”

There was something trusty and friendly in his voice; and I found myself gripping hands with him, in that hard, short shake that means so much with English-speaking people.

“We’ll do, old fellow,” said he.  “We’ve shaken down into pretty good friends, you and me; and you won’t find me working the business any the less hard for that.  And now let’s scoot for supper.”

After supper, with the idle curiosity of the seafarer, we pulled ashore in a fine moonlight, and landed on Middle Brook’s Island.  A flat beach surrounded it upon all sides; and the midst was occupied by a thicket of bushes, the highest of them scarcely five feet high, in which the sea-fowl lived.  Through this we tried at first to strike; but it were easier to cross Trafalgar Square on a day of demonstration than to invade these haunts of sleeping sea-birds.  The nests sank, and the eggs burst under footing; wings beat in our faces, beaks menaced our eyes, our minds were confounded with the screeching, and the coil spread over the island and mounted high into the air.

“I guess we’ll saunter round the beach,” said Nares, when we had made good our retreat.

The hands were all busy after sea-birds’ eggs, so there were none to follow us.  Our way lay on the crisp sand by the margin of the water:  on one side, the thicket from which we had been dislodged; on the other, the face of the lagoon, barred with a broad path of moonlight, and beyond that, the line, alternately dark and shining, alternately hove high and fallen prone, of the external breakers.  The beach was strewn with bits of wreck and drift:  some redwood and spruce logs, no less than two lower masts of junks, and the stern-post of a European ship; all of which we looked on with a shade of serious concern, speaking of the dangers of the sea and the hard case of castaways.  In this sober vein we made the greater part of the circuit of the island; had a near view of its neighbour from the southern end; walked the whole length of the westerly side in the shadow of the thicket; and came forth again into the moonlight at the opposite extremity.

On our right, at the distance of about half a mile, the schooner lay faintly heaving at her anchors.  About half a mile down the beach, at a spot still hidden from us by the thicket, an upboiling of the birds showed where the men were still (with sailor-like insatiability) collecting eggs.  And right before us, in a small indentation of the sand, we were aware of a boat lying high and dry, and right side up.