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we could leave one copy on the island whatever happens to us and put another in an empty bottle and send it out to sea, as they do in the books.”

“A good idea,” said Turnbull, “and now let us finish unpacking.”

As MacIan, a tall, almost ghostly figure, paced along the edge of sand that ran round the islet, the purple but cloudy poetry which was his native element was piled up at its thickest upon his soul. The unique island and the endless sea emphasised the thing solely as an epic. There were no ladies or policemen here to give him a hint either of its farce or its tragedy.

“Perhaps when the morning stars were made,” he said to himself, “God built this island up from the bottom of the world to be a tower and a theatre for the fight between yea and nay.”

Then he wandered up to the highest level of the rock, where there was a roof or plateau of level stone. Half an hour afterward, Turnbull found him clearing away the loose sand from this table-land and making it smooth and even.

“We will fight up here, Turnbull,” said MacIan, “when the time comes. And till the time comes this place shall be sacred.”

“I thought of having lunch up here,” said