“I don’t know why we’re doing all this; I suppose we ought really to fall to and get it over.”

Then he added more thoughtfully:  “Of course this island seems rather bare and the survivor——­”

“The question is,” said Turnbull, with cheerful speculation, “whether the survivor will be in a proper frame of mind for potted prawns.”

MacIan looked down at the rows of tins and bottles, and the cloud of doubt still lowered upon his face.

“You will permit me two liberties, my dear sir,” said Turnbull at last:  “The first is to break open this box and light one of Mr. Wilkinson’s excellent cigars, which will, I am sure, assist my meditations; the second is to offer a penny for your thoughts; or rather to convulse the already complex finances of this island by betting a penny that I know them.”

“What on earth are you talking about?” asked MacIan, listlessly, in the manner of an inattentive child.

“I know what you are really thinking, MacIan,” repeated Turnbull, laughing.  “I know what I am thinking, anyhow.  And I rather fancy it’s the same.”

“What are you thinking?” asked Evan.

“I am thinking and you are thinking,” said Turnbull, “that it is damned silly to waste all that champagne.”

Something like the spectre of a smile appeared on the unsmiling visage of the Gael; and he made at least no movement of dissent.

“We could drink all the wine and smoke all the cigars easily in a week,” said Turnbull; “and that would be to die feasting like heroes.”

“Yes, and there is something else,” said MacIan, with slight hesitation.  “You see, we are on an almost unknown rock, lost in the Atlantic.  The police will never catch us; but then neither may the public ever hear of us; and that was one of the things we wanted.”  Then, after a pause, he said, drawing in the sand with his sword-point:  “She may never hear of it at all.”

“Well?” inquired the other, puffing at his cigar.

“Well,” said MacIan, “we might occupy a day or two in drawing up a thorough and complete statement of what we did and why we did it, and all about both our points of view.  Then we could leave one copy on the island whatever happens to us and put another in an empty bottle and send it out to sea, as they do in the books.”

“A good idea,” said Turnbull, “and now let us finish unpacking.”

As MacIan, a tall, almost ghostly figure, paced along the edge of sand that ran round the islet, the purple but cloudy poetry which was his native element was piled up at its thickest upon his soul.  The unique island and the endless sea emphasized the thing solely as an epic.  There were no ladies or policemen here to give him a hint either of its farce or its tragedy.

“Perhaps when the morning stars were made,” he said to himself, “God built this island up from the bottom of the world to be a tower and a theatre for the fight between yea and nay.”