coast.  The man on the boulder was a tall, slightly-built young fellow, apparently about thirty years of age, with leonine masses of reddish-coloured hair, and a short, stubbly beard of the same tint.  His face, pale and attenuated by famine, looked sharp and clever; and his eyes, forming a strong contrast to his hair, were quite black, with thin, delicately-drawn eyebrows above them.  They scintillated with a peculiar light which, though not offensive, yet gave anyone looking at him an uncomfortable feeling of insecurity.  The young man’s hands, though hardened and discoloured, were yet finely formed, while even the coarse, heavy boots he wore could not disguise the delicacy of his feet.  He was dressed in a rough blue suit of clothes, all torn and much stained by sea water, and his head was covered with a red cap of wool-work which rested lightly on his tangled masses of hair.  After a time he tossed aside the biscuit he was eating, and looked down at his companion with a cynical smile.  The man at his feet was a rough, heavy-looking fellow, squarely and massively built, with black hair and a heavy beard of the same sombre hue.  His hands were long and sinewy; his feet—­which were bare—­large and ungainly:  and his whole appearance was that of a man in a low station of life.  No one could have told the colour of his eyes, for he looked obstinately at the ground; and the expression of his face was so sullen and forbidding that altogether he appeared to be an exceedingly unpleasant individual.  His companion eyed him for a short time in a cool, calculating manner, and then rose painfully to his feet.

‘So,’ he said rapidly in French, waving his hand towards the frowning cliffs, ’so, my Pierre, we are in the land of promise; though I must confess’—­with a disparaging shrug of the shoulders—­ ’it certainly does not look very promising:  still, we are on dry land, and that is something after tossing about so long in that stupid boat, with only a plank between us and death.  Bah!’—­with another expressive shrug—­’why should I call it stupid?  It has carried us all the way from New Caledonia, that hell upon earth, and landed us safely in what may turn out Paradise.  We must not be ungrateful to the bridge that carried us over—­eh, my friend?’

The man addressed as Pierre nodded an assent, then pointed towards the boat; the other looked up and saw that the tide had risen, and that the boat was drifting slowly away from the land.

‘It goes,’ he said coolly, ’back again to its proper owner, I suppose.  Well, let it.  We have no further need of it, for, like Caesar, we have now crossed the Rubicon.  We are no longer convicts from a French prison, my friend, but shipwrecked sailors; you hear?’—­with a sudden scintillation from his black eyes—­ ’shipwrecked sailors; and I will tell the story of the wreck.  Luckily, I can depend on your discretion, as you have not even a tongue to contradict, which you wouldn’t do if you had.’