"We are miracles, without a doubt," said Wulf gravely, as they went back home. "No one else gets here alive, you see.... I was the first miracle. Macro was the second," and he told her what she had not known before, how he had contrived to save the mate, and of his regret that it had not been old Jock Steele the carpenter, who would have been a blessing to them instead of a curse. "And you are the third and best miracle of all," he said, clasping her arm more tightly under his own. "God! what a difference it has made!" he said fervently. "Alone here one might go mad. In time one most certainly would. See how good a work you are accomplishing by simply remaining alive. Instead of being a melancholy madman you make me the happiest man on earth. Oh, the God-given wonder of a woman! Truly you are the greatest miracle of all, and He has been good to me." "And to me. If you had not been here I should have been dead and we would never have met. Perhaps He sent us to one another." "I'm sure He did, and all our lives we'll thank Him for it," and so the sight of the dead but put a keener edge on their gratitude for life and their joy in one another. The next big storm washed the point clean again. All had gone, wreckage, bodies, everything, and the great pile beyond bristled higher than ever. "Do you notice anything strange?" he asked her, as they stood looking out at it. "There seems more of it." "And not a bird to be seen. They've all gone for the winter, I expect. We shall not see them again till next year." "I am glad. They are evil things. Our Paradise is sweeter without them," and he kissed her for the word. The weird forces of the gales, however, afforded them many surprises. Tramping round the further end of their lake one day, they saw changes in the great stretch of sand that ran out of sight towards the eastern point. What had been a level plain was scored and furrowed as by a mighty ploughshare. It was like a rough sea whose tumbling waves had in an instant been turned into sand--league-long grooves with high-piled ridges between, and in the hollows the watery sun glinted briefly here and there on shining white objects sticking out of the sand. "Bones!" said Wulf in surprise, as they stood looking into the first hollow, and he jumped down and picked up a human skull. "Horrid!" said Avice. "And there's another, and another over there. It's a regular grave-yard." "A battle-field, I should say," as he examined them one after another. "This is very curious. This fellow was killed by a bullet through the head. Here's the hole. And this one's skull was split with an axe or a sword. This one also. I wonder what it all means...." "Pirates and murderers. That's what they look like." "I shouldn't wonder.... Here's an ancient cutlass." "And what's this?"--rooting at something with her foot.... "An old pistol! ... and the hilt of another sword! ... I wonder if they were the men who lived on our ships."