They had reasons o' their own for coming to this
God-forsaken--saving your presence, sirs--this God-forsaken bay, and
they took a short cut to it by arranging to be blown ashore there.
That's my idea o' the matter, though what three Buddhist priests could
find to do in the Bay of Kirkmaiden is clean past my comprehension."
My father raised his eyebrows to indicate the doubt which his
hospitality forbade him from putting into words.
"I think, gentlemen," he said, "that you are both sorely in need of rest
after your perilous adventures. If you will follow me I shall lead you
to your rooms."
He conducted them with old-fashioned ceremony to the laird's best spare
bedroom, and then, returning to me in the parlour, proposed that we
should go down together to the beach and learn whether anything fresh
had occurred.
The first pale light of dawn was just appearing in the east when we made
our way for the second time to the scene of the shipwreck. The gale had
blown itself out, but the sea was still very high, and all inside the
breakers was a seething, gleaming line of foam, as though the fierce old
ocean were gnashing its white fangs at the victims who had escaped from
its clutches.
All along the beach fishermen and crofters were hard at work hauling up
spars and barrels as fast as they were tossed ashore. None of them had
seen any bodies, however, and they explained to us that only such things
as could float had any chance of coming ashore, for the undercurrent was
so strong that whatever was beneath the surface must infallibly be swept
out to sea.
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