The village--gone as though wiped with a sponge off a slate. The mission-houses, schools, church--not a plank left. And somewhere below the smiling face of the lagoon lay all that was left of the ships and the men who had been in them. Not all below, after all, for from his perch he could see the beach strewn with fragments, human and otherwise. Right below him on the hillside, John MacNeil's waterwheel turned busily in fruitless labour, and its bare nakedness and useless fussiness added to the sense of desolation and discomfort. Then the sun topped the hills, and cheered their chilled senses somewhat. Blair and Cathie straightened themselves wearily, but neither dared as yet look into the other's face, lest he should find there only confirmation of his own worst fears. Kenni-Kenni, who had fared better than any of them, and was conscious of nothing more than bodily discomfort, gave a hungry cry which woke response in Cathie's breast. "Let us go down," he said. "Maybe we'll find something to eat," and the two men scrambled down to the level, and walked over the soft mud where the houses had stood, and searched with anxious eyes for something that might stay their more pressing necessities. Blair turned up towards the valley. Cathie, with more prescience, sought the beach, and presently a shout from him brought the two together again. When they met, the captain was carrying the body of a drowned kid under one arm, and a bundle of wood under the other. "Here's breakfast," he said, and did not think it well to mention that he had found the kid lying between the bodies of two dead men, one brown, the other white. The matches in their metal cases were all damp, but a few minutes' exposure to the sun put that right, and they soon had fire, and kid steaks grilling over it on pointed sticks. Then they helped the ladies down and were presently eating, though, in spite of their hunger, each one of them felt like choking at every mouthful. And there was no talk among them, for they were sitting on the grave of their hopes. More than once Jean stopped feeding her boy and glanced questioningly at the men, and then, as they ate stolidly, weighted with their thoughts, she went on with her work. It was only when they had all quite finished, and sat as though dreading what might come next, that she said-- "Are we all that are left, Ken? I thought I heard a cry just now." "Did you, dear? It is possible. There must surely be others. We will go and see," and he and Cathie went off again towards the beach. "How's it up the valley?" asked the captain briefly. "Drowned out." The beach was a pitiful sight. Every step spoke of the catastrophe. Bodies uncountable, white and brown, men, women, and children, pigs and goats, broken coco-nuts, bruised fruit, wreckage from the ships and plantations and houses.