It was almost dead low water. The storm of the previous days seemed to have exhausted the elements for the time being. The sea was smooth, with no more movement than the long slow heave which curled, as it neared the shore, into great green and white combers of exquisite beauty, rushing up the beaches in a dapple of marbled foam, and back into the bosom of the next comer with a long-drawn sibilant hiss. There was a soft south-west wind and even a cheering touch of the sun, and as their work was like to be of the wettest, and dry clothes were a luxury, they left them above tide-level and went out stripped to the fight, their only weapon the mate's sailor's-knife in the belt which he buckled round his waist. But, in view of the screeching deevils already in possession, they forethoughtfully armed themselves with the weightiest clubs they could pick out of the raffle of the beach. For in that countless predatory host, although its components were but birds, there was menace passing words. It made them feel bare and vulnerable, and Macro cursed them heartily as he went. They reached the pile without any difficulty, and the mate's keen eye raked round for the likeliest stuff for a raft. It was no good acquiring cargo till they had a craft to carry it. There was no lack of timber, however, and cordage was to be had for the cutting, and with these the skilled hands of the seaman soon constructed a raft large enough for their utmost probable requirements. Then he turned with gusto to the more satisfying joys of plunder, and developed new and startling sides to his character. Wulf laughed, but found him surprising, as the cateran spirit of his forebears came uppermost with this tremendous opportunity. He climbed up and down and in and out of the high-piled wreckage like a hungry tiger, bashed in boxes and cases with a huge club of mahogany which had once adorned the cabin-staircase of a ship, and raked over their contents with the avidious claws of a wrecker of the evil coasts. Now and again strange ejaculations broke from him. More than once, in the wild glee of pillage and unexpected booty, he shouted snatches of weird runes and chanties which Wulf supposed were Gaelic. At times he stood and shook his fist at the screaming birds that swooped about him, and cursed them volubly. And once, Wulfrey, on the raft below, knitted his brows and watched him with doubtful perplexity as, in the disappointment of his hopes respecting one great case which had resisted his efforts and finally yielded nothing of consequence, he attacked another with shouts of fury and a Berserk madness that scattered chips and splinters far and wide. An incautious cormorant swooped by him. With a stroke he sent it spinning, a bruised and broken bundle of feathers, and it fell with a dull flop into the sea.