In spite of their hard work they had neither of them much appetite for food that night. They turned in early and slept as they had not slept for long, without fear and without strain. The darkness was no longer pregnant with ungaugeable terrors. The dawn was like the beginning of a new life to them. Wulf, indeed, saw again that night, and many a night thereafter, the horror of the clustering birds and that over which they bristled and fought. But he woke each time to the immeasurable relief of the man's death. That had been essential to their own safety, but he thanked God with his whole heart that it had not been by his hand that he had had to die. For that he never could be sufficiently grateful. He had played him fair and more than fair. He was dead, and their consciences and their hearts were alike at rest. They woke next morning to the close folding of the mist, and he had to set to work at once making good the broken companion-doors to keep it out of the cabin as much as possible. Being but a poor carpenter, the only way he could do this was by nailing a blanket to the top of the hatch and pegging it down tightly to the top step. But he foresaw that the next gale would blow his stop-gap to pieces and destroy their comfort below. So did the dead man's deeds live after him, and it was not the only one. They were sitting at their mid-day meal, when the thick silence of the mist outside was rent by a shrill frightened scream right above their heads, and almost simultaneous with it a heavy thump, and then, on the deck above them, blows and screams and the sound of some large body tumbling to and fro. The Girl sprang up with a white face and scared eyes and a word of dismay. Wulf picked up his axe and burst through his carefully adjusted blanket at the top of the companion. Then she heard the chop-chop of his axe on the deck, and the fall of something into the water, and he came down laughing at the start it had given him also. "It was the biggest bird I ever saw," he said. "It had banged itself against the mast, I think, and was flopping all over the place. I chopped its head off and pitched it overboard. It must have measured six feet at least from tip to tip of its wings. It gave you a start." "I was just thinking of that man and how different everything was now he is gone, and then that horrid scream----" "Yes, it was enough to make anyone jump." "It seemed to me for a moment that it was his spirit come back to trouble us still, as he had done while he lived." "It won't come. Unless it's got inside a bird, as he always said. You must try to forget all about him." "It is not easy. But, whether it is wicked of me or not, I thank God he is dead." "And I thank God that he did not die by my hand. I shall never cease to be thankful for that." "We shall never be able to build a boat now," she said presently, following out the natural train of her thought.