He picked up a stick of wood from the drift, and set off at a run along the beach. The others armed themselves in like manner and followed him. The brown men sprang up from their feast as they rounded the corner, some of them still gnawing at chunks of flesh in their hands. Blair rushed at them like a blazing bolt. Several of them, for lack of clubs, snatched brands from the fire. He paid no heed to their weapons, but laid about him with his stick with such vigour that they gave way before him, and the others, following his lead with hearty good will, drove the brown men back, and finally put them to the run. "Now," said Blair, as he leaned on his stick, "there is only one thing to be done. Pile all the rough wood you can find on to that fire. Keep out anything that may be useful. We must burn all those bodies. We can't take them out to sea, and if we bury them they'll dig them up." It was obviously the best thing to do, and they set about the gruesome business at once. They made a mighty pile of firing and laid the bodies reverently on it, and covered them with more wood, and more bodies and again more wood, till they had to wait till the pile burned down, because of the height of it and the heat. And their faces were pinched and their breaths shortened, as they carried to the pyre the bodies of those they had lived with in comradeship for so long, and they worked in silence. The only sound that was heard beyond the crackle and fall of the burning wood, as the dense black smoke rolled up into the sky, was the voice of Blair, as he stood to windward and quietly recited portions of the service for the Burial of the Dead from time to time. And surely never did the solemn words sound more weighty and full of meaning. "I am the resurrection and the life.... "Lord, Thou hast been our refuge: from one generation to another.... "Thou turnest man to destruction.... "They are even as a sleep: and fade away suddenly like the grass.... "In the evening it is cut down, dried up, and withered.... "For we consume away in Thy displeasure.... "Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live.... He cometh up and is cut down, like a flower.... "In the midst of life we are in death.... "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.... "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord.... For they rest from their labours...." None of them ever forgot that strange and somewhat ghastly service--the hungry lick of the flames, blue and green and yellow and red from the salt and tar, but almost unseen in the beams of the fully-risen sun; the rippling lagoon; the sparkling white beach; the foam-jets on the reef; the great blue sea beyond; the pitiful things the flames consumed; and the rolling clouds of smoke which spread like a pall along the scarred hillside.