Of course Mrs. Abel Zachariah, keenly interested in his quest of the prize, was there to meet him, and looking into the boat she saw the ghastly passenger and was duly shocked.

“The man has been killed!” she exclaimed, stepping backward as though afraid the thing would injure her.  “It is a boat of evil!  Come away from it!  Why did you bring it in from the sea?”

For answer Abel reached beneath the deck, lifted out the child, and stepping ashore placed it in Mrs. Abel’s arms.

“A boy,” said he.  “God sent him to us and he is ours.”

Mrs. Abel was taken completely by surprise.  For a long moment she looked into the child’s flushed and feverish face, and it looked into her round and eager face, and smiled its confidence, and from that instant she took it to her heart as her own.  She pressed it to her bosom with all the mother love of a good woman, for Mrs. Abel Zachariah, primitive Eskimo though she was, was a good woman, and her heart was soft and affectionate.

The child was ill and neglected.  It was evidently suffering from exposure and lack of nourishment.  Mrs. Abel’s instincts told her this at a glance and forgetful of all else, she hurried away with it to the tent.  It drank eagerly from the cup of clear cold water which she held to its lips, and ate as much fresh-caught cod, boiled in sea water, and of her own coarse bread, as she thought well for it.

All the time she fondled the boy and talked to him soothingly in strange Eskimo words which he had never heard before, but which nevertheless he understood, for she spoke in the universal accent of the mother to her little one.  And when he had eaten he nestled snugly in her arms, as he would have nestled in his own mother’s arms, and with his head upon her bosom closed his eyes and sighed in deep content.

Abel when his wife had gone with the child into the tent, anchored the boat of tragedy a little way from shore, that the big wolf dogs prowling about might not interfere with the peaceful repose of its silent occupant.  Then rowing ashore in his skiff, he selected a secluded spot upon the island, and dug a grave.

In the rocky soil the grave was necessarily a shallow one, and he had finished his task when Mrs. Abel reappeared from the tent to announce that the boy was sleeping and seemed much better after eating.  Then while they sat upon the rocks and ate their own belated dinner of boiled cod and tea, Abel told the story of his discovery.

“What do you suppose killed the man?” Mrs. Abel asked.

“I do not know,” said Abel.  “It looks like a gunshot wound but I have not searched for a gun yet.  It is a fine boat, and did not belong to a schooner.  I never saw a boat like it and I never saw so fine a boat before.  The man was not a fisherman, either.”

“The boy’s clothing is finer than any I ever saw,” declared Mrs. Abel.  “It is not like any I ever saw and is finer and prettier than the missionaries’ children wear and on one of his fingers there is a beautiful ring.”