And to me a derelict brings a keener tang
of romance than any other relic of man's multitudinous and futile
strivings.
The descent of the gully proved an easy matter, and soon I was on
the sand beside the derelict. Sand had heaped up around her hull,
and filled her cockpit level with the rail, and drifted down the
companion, stuffing the little cabin nearly to the roof, Only the
bow rose free from the white smother of sand. Whatever wounds
there were in her buried sides were hidden. You felt that some
wild caprice of the storm had lifted her and set her down here, not
too roughly, then whirled away and left her to the sand.
Crusoe slipped into the narrow space under the roof of the cabin,
and I leaned idly down to watch him through a warped seam between
the planks. Then I found that I was looking, not at Crusoe, but
into a little dim enclosure like a locker, in which some small
object faintly caught the light. With a revived hope of finding
relics I got out my knife--a present from Cuthbert Vane--and set
briskly to work widening the seam.
I penetrated finally into a small locker or cubby-hole, set in the
angle under the roof of the cabin, and, as subsequent investigation
showed, so placed as to attract no notice from the casual eye. I
ascertained this by lying down and wriggling my head and shoulders
into the cabin.
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