single mast had been broken off short, and the stump of the
bowsprit was visible, like a finger beckoning for rescue from the
crawling sand. She was embedded most deeply at the stem, and
forward of the sand-heaped cockpit the roof of the small cabin was
still clear.

"Poor forlorn little boat!" I said. "What in the world do you
suppose brought such a mite of a thing to this unheard-of spot?"

"Perhaps she belonged to the copra chap. One man could handle her."

"What would he want with her? A small boat like this is better for
fishing and rowing about the cove."

"Perhaps she brought him here from Panama, though he couldn't have
counted on taking back a very bulky cargo."

"Then why leave her strewn about on the rocks? And besides"--here
the puzzle of Crusoe recurred to me and seemed to link itself with
this--"then how did he get away himself?"

But my oarsman was much more at home on the solid ground of fact
than on the uncharted waters of the hypothetical.

"Don't know, I'm sure," he returned uninterestedly. Evidently the
hermit had got away, so why concern one's self about the method? I
am sure the Light Brigade must have been made up of Cuthbert Vanes.
"Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do or die--"

We rowed in close under the port bow of the sloop, and on the rail