It was on the southern shore of what is now known as France that our hero and his comrades in misfortune were cast.

 

At the time we write of, we need hardly say, the land was nameless. Even her old Roman name of Gaul had not yet been given to her, for Rome itself had not been founded. The fair land was a vast wilderness, known only—and but slightly—to the adventurous mariners of the east, who, with the spirit of Columbus, had pushed their discoveries and trade far beyond the Pillars of Hercules.

 

Of course the land was a vast solitude, inhabited, sparsely, by a few of those wandering tribes which had been driven westward—by conquest or by that desire for adventure which has characterised the human race, we suppose, ever since Adam and Eve began to explore the regions beyond Eden. Like the great wilderness lying to the north of Canada at the present time, it was also the home of innumerable wild animals which afforded to its uncivilised inhabitants both food and clothing.

 

Captain Arkal was the only one of the three survivors of the wreck who had seen that coast before or knew anything about it, for, when Bladud had entered the Mediterranean many years before, he had passed too far to the southward to see the northern land.

 

As they staggered up the beach to a place where the thundering waves sent only their spray, Bladud looked round with some anxiety.

 

“Surely,” he said, “some of the crew must have escaped. It can hardly be that we three are the only survivors out of so many.”

 

The party halted and looked back at the seething waves from which they had just escaped.

 

“It would be foul shame to us,” said the captain, “if we did not try to lend a helping hand to our comrades; but we shall find none of them here. I observed when they started that, in spite of my warning, they made straight for the land, instead of keeping well to windward to avoid being swept round that point of rock to the west. I led you in the right direction, and that is why we alone are here. If any of the others have been saved, they must be on the other side of that point.”

 

While he was speaking, the captain had hurried into the woods, intending to cross the neck of land which separated them from the bay beyond the point referred to.

 

Their strength returned as they ran, for their intense desire to render aid to those of their late comrades who might stand in need of it seemed to serve them in the stead of rest.

 

“Come, quick!” cried little Maikar, whose catlike activity and strength enabled him to outrun his more bulky companions. “We may be too late; and some of them can’t swim—I know.”

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