down.

They slept until long after sunrise.



It was Pete Murphy who waked them. "Say, who was it, yesterday, talked
about seeing black spots? I'm hanged if I'm not hipped, too. When I woke
just before sunrise, there were black things off there in the west. Of
course I was almost dead to the world but - "

"Like great birds?" Billy Fairfax asked with interest.

"Exactly."

"Bats from your belfry," commented Ralph Addington. Because of his
constant globe-trotting, Addington's slang was often a half-decade
behind the times.

"Too much sunlight," Frank Merrill explained. "Lucky thing, we don't any
of us have to wear glasses. We'd certainly be up against it in this
double glare. Sand and sun both, you see! And you can thank whatever
instinct that's kept you all in training. This shipwreck is the most
perfect case I've ever seen of the survival of the fittest."

And in fact, they were all, except for Pete Murphy, big men, and all,
even he, active, strong-muscled, and in the pink of condition.

The huge tide had not entirely subsided, but there was a perceptible
diminution in the height of the waves. Up beyond the water-line lay a