It was toward this party that Mr Perry and I now directed our steps; and when we had joined it the skipper, picking out a dozen of the most handy men, gave them instructions to provide themselves with tools of some sort suitable for the purpose of digging a couple of graves in the loose, yielding sand above the level of high-water mark; and while they were doing this, under my supervision, my companion wandered away by himself in search of a suitable site for the graves.  As a matter of fact there was very little in the nature of choice, the entire spit, or at least that portion of it which we occupied, consisting of loose sand, sparsely covered, along the ridge and far a few yards on either side of it, with a kind of creeper with thick, tough, hairy stems and large, broad leaves, the upper surface of which bristled with hairy spicules about a quarter of an inch long.  This plant, it was evident, bound the otherwise loose drifts and into a sufficiently firm condition to resist the perpetual scouring action of the wind; it was in this portion of the spit, therefore, that Mr Perry gave orders for the two graves to be dug; and presently my little gang of twelve were busily engaged in scooping out two holes, some twenty feet apart, to serve as graves. They were obliged to work with such tools as came to hand, and these consisted of splintered pieces of plank, the boats' balers, and some wooden buckets that had come ashore.