CHAPTER VIII.In which the Mariner’s Rest and the Ancient Mariner himself receive particular Attention.
The next day being Sunday, the Captain’s little friends did not go down to see him, and the day after being stormy, they could not. So, when Tuesday came, they were all the more eager for the visit that it had been delayed; and accordingly they hurried off at a very early hour. Indeed, the old man was only too glad to have them come down at any time, for he had during these past few days become so used to their being with him, and he had taken such a fancy to them, that he felt himself quite lost and lonely when a day passed by without seeing them. He was, as we have already seen, rather afraid they might disturb him if he said, “Come at any hour you please,” instead of “Come at four o’clock, or three, or two o’clock,” as the case might be; but he had discovered them to be such well-behaved and gentle children, that he made up his mind theycould never trouble or annoy him. So when last they parted, he said to them, “Come in the morning, if you like, and play all day about the grounds, and if I have work to do you must not mind. Nobody will disturb you”;—and, in truth, there was nobody there to disturb them, for besides the old man and his boy, Main Brace, there was no living thing about the house, if we except two fine old Newfoundland dogs which the Captain had brought home with him from his last voyage, and which he called “Port” and “Starboard.” He had also a flock of handsome chickens, and some foreign ducks. “And now,” said he, “when you have seen all these, and Main Brace, and me, you have seen my family, for this is all the family that I have, unless I count the pretty little birds that hop and skip and sing among the trees.”
Main Brace did all the work about the house, except what the Captain did himself. He cooked, and set the Captain’s table, and kept the Captain’s house in order generally. As for the house itself, there was not much of it to keep in order. We have already seen that it was very small and but one story high. There was no hall in it, and only five rooms upon the floor. Let us look into it more particularly.
Entering it from the front through the little porch covered over with honeysuckle vines that are smelling sweet all the summer through, we come at once into the largest of the rooms, where the Captain takes his meals and does many other things. But he never calls it his dining-room. Nothing can induce him to call it anything but his “quarter-deck.” On the right-hand side there are two doors, and there are two more on the left-hand side, and directly before us there are two windows, looking out into the Captain’s garden, where there are fruits and vegetables of every kind growing inabundance. The first door on the right opens into a little room where Main Brace sleeps. This the Captain calls the “forecastle.” The other door on the right opens into the kitchen, which the Captain calls his “galley.” The first door on the left is closed, but the second opens into what the Captain calls his “cabin,” and this connects with a little room behind the door that is closed, which he calls his “state-room,”—and, in truth, it looks more like a state-room of a ship than a chamber. It has no bed in it, but a narrow berth on one side, just like a state-room berth. All sorts of odd-fashioned clothes are hanging on the walls, which the Captain says he has worn in the different countries where he has travelled. Odd though this state-room is, it is not half so odd as the Captain’s cabin.
Let us examine this cabin of the Captain. There is an old table in the centre of it. There are a few old books in an old-fashioned bookcase. There is no carpet to be seen, but the floor is almost covered over with skins of different kinds of animals, among which are a Bengal tiger, a Polar bear, a South American ocelot, a Rocky Mountain wolf, and a Siberian fox. In a great glass case, standing against the wall, there is a variety of stuffed birds. On the very top of this case there is a huge white-headed eagle, with his large wings spread out, and at the bottom of it there is a pelican with no wings at all. On the right-hand side there is an enormous albatross, and on the left-hand side there is a tall red flamingo; while in the very centre a snowy owl stands straight up and looks straight at you out of his great glass eyes. And then there are still other birds,—birds little and birds big, birds bright and birds dingy, all scattered about wherever there is room, each sitting or standing on its separate perch,and looking, for all the world, as if it were alive and would fly away only for the glass.
On the walls of this singular room are hanging all sorts of singular weapons, and many other things which the Captain has picked up in his travels. There is a Turkish scimitar, a Moorish gun, an Italian stiletto, a Japanese “happy despatch,” a Norman battle-axe, besides spears and lances and swords of shapes and kinds too numerous to mention. In one corner, on a bracket, there is a model of a ship, in another a Chinese junk, in a third an old Dutch clock, and in the fourth there is a stone idol of the Incas, while above the door there is the figure-head of a small vessel, probably a schooner.
When the children came down, running all the way at a very lively rate, the Captain was in his cabin overhauling all these treasures, and dusting and placing them so that they would show to the very best advantage. Indeed, there were so many “traps,” as he called them, hanging and lying about, that the place might well have been called a “curiosity shop” rather than a cabin. In truth, it had nothing of the look of a cabin about it.
When the Captain heard the children coming, he said to himself, “I’ll give them a surprise to-day,” and he looked out through the open window, and called to them. They answered with a merry laugh, and, running around to the door, rushed into the “quarter-deck,” and were with the Captain in a twinkling.
“O, what a jolly place!” exclaimed William; “such a jolly lot of things! Why didn’t you show them to us before, Captain Hardy?”
“One thing at a time, my lad; I can’t show you everything at once,” answered the old man.
“But where did you get them all, Captain Hardy?”
“As for that, I picked them up all about the world, and I could tell a story about every one of them.”
“O, isn’t that splendid?—won’t you tell us now?” inquired William.
“And knock off telling you what the Dean and I were doing up there by the North Pole, on that island without a name?”
William was a little puzzled to know what reply he should make to that, for he thought the Captain looked as if he did not half like what he had said; so he satisfied himself with exclaiming, “No, no, no,” a great number of times, and then asked, “But won’t you tell us all about them when you get out of the North Pole scrape?”
“Maybe so, my lad, maybe so; we’ll see about that; one thing at a time is a good rule in story-telling as well as in other matters. And now you may look at all these things, and when you are satisfied, and I have got done putting them to rights, we’ll go on with the story again.”
The children were greatly delighted with everything they saw, and they passed a very happy hour, helping the Captain to put his cabin in “ship-shape order,” as he said. Then they all crowded up into one corner, and the Captain, seated on an old camp-stool, which had evidently seen much service in a great number of places, did as he had promised.
What he said, however, deserves a chapter by itself; and so we’ll turn another leaf and start fresh again.
CHAPTER IX.Contains a Recovery, a Discovery, and a Disappointment.
“And now,” said the Captain, “what was the young man doing, when we knocked off the other day, after the storm?”
William, whose memory was always as good as his words were ready, said he was “just going to sleep.”
“True, that’s the thing; and I went to sleep and slept soundly, I can tell you. And this you may well enough believe when you bear in mind how much I had passed through since the last sleep I had on board the ship,—for since then had come the shipwreck, the saving of the Dean and carrying him ashore, the walk around the island, besides all the anxiety and worriment of mind in consequence of my own unhappy situation and the Dean’s uncertain fate.
“More than twenty-four hours had elapsed since the shipwreck, and if I tell you that I slept full twelve hours, without once waking up, you must not be at all surprised.
“When I opened my eyes again, we were in the shadow of the cliffs once more; that is, the sun had gone around to the north again. The Dean was already wide awake. When I asked him how he was, he said he felt much better, only his head still pained him greatly, and he was very thirsty and hungry.
“I got up immediately, and assisted the Dean to rise. He was a little dizzy at first, but after sitting down for a few minuteson a rock he recovered himself. Then I brought him some water in an egg-shell to drink. And then I gave him a raw egg, which he swallowed as if it had been the daintiest morsel in the world. ‘It’s lucky, isn’t it,’ said he, ‘that there are so many eggs about?’ After a moment I observed that he was laughing, which very much surprised me, as that would have been about the last thing that ever would have entered into my head to do. ‘Do you know,’ he asked, ‘what a very ridiculous figure we are cutting? Look, we are all covered over with feathers. I have heard of people being tarred and feathered, but never heard of anything like this. Let’s pick each other.’
“Sure enough we were literally covered over with the down in which we had been sleeping, and when I saw what a jest the poor Dean, with his sore head, made of the plight we were in, I forgot all my own troubles and joined in the laugh with him.
“We now fell to work picking each other, as the Dean had suggested, and were soon as clean of feathers as any other well-plucked geese.
“By this time the Dean’s clothes had become entirely dry; so each dressed himself in the clothes that belonged to him, and then we started over to the nearest brook, where we bathed our hands and faces, drying them on an old bandanna handkerchief which I was lucky enough to have in my pocket. I had to support the Dean a little as we went along, for he was very weak; but in spite of this his spirits were excellent, and when he saw, for the first time, the ducks fly up, he said, ‘What a great pair of silly dunces they must take us for,—coming into such a place as this.’
“After we had refreshed ourselves at the brook, and eatensome more eggs, we very naturally began to talk. I related to the Dean, more particularly than I had done before, the events of the shipwreck and our escape, and what I had discovered on the island, and then made some allusion to the prospect ahead of us. To my great surprise, the Dean was not apparently in the least cast down about it. In truth, he took it much more resignedly, and had a more hopeful eye to the future, than I had. ‘If,’ said he, ‘it is God’s will that we shall live, he will furnish us the means; if not, we can but die. I wouldn’t mind it half so much, if my poor mother only knew what was become of me.’ This reflection seemed to sadden him for a moment, and I thought I saw a tear in his eye; but he brightened up instantly as a great flock of ducks went whizzing overhead. ‘Well,’ exclaimed he, ‘there seems to be no lack of something to eat here anyway, and we ought to manage to catch it somehow, and live until a ship comes along and takes us off.’
“The Dean took such a hopeful view of the future that we were soon chatting in a very lively way about everything that concerned our escape, and here I must have dwelt largely upon the satisfaction which I took in rescuing the Dean, for the little fellow said: ‘Well, I suppose I ought to thank you very much for saving me; but the truth is, all the agony of death being over with me when you pulled me out, the chief benefit falls on you, as you seem so much rejoiced about it; but I’ll be grateful as I can, and show it by not troubling you any more. See, I’m almost well. I feel better and better every minute,—only I’m sore here on the head where I got the crack.’
“To tell the truth, in thinking of other things, I had neglected, or rather quite forgotten, the Dean’s wounded head;so now, my attention being called to it, I examined it very carefully, and found that it was nothing more than a bad bruise, with a cut near the centre of it about half an inch long. Having washed it carefully, I bound my bandanna handkerchief about it, and we once more came back to consider what we should do.
“Of course, the first thing we thought of and talked about was how we should go about starting a fire; next in importance to this was that we should have a place to shelter us. So far as concerned our food and drink, our immediate necessities were provided for, as we had the little rivulet close at hand, and any quantity of eggs to be had for the gathering, and we set about collecting a great number of them at once; for in a few days we thought it very likely that most of them would have little ducks in them, as, indeed, many of them had already. Another thing we settled upon was, that we would never both go to sleep at the same time, nor quit our present side of the island together; but one of us would be always on the lookout for a ship, as we both thought that, since our ship had come that way, others would be very likely to, though neither of us had the remotest idea in the world as to where we were, any more than that we were on an island somewhere in the northern sea.
“But the fire which we wanted so much to warm ourselves and cook our food,—what should we do for that? Here was the great question; and fire, fire, fire, was the one leading idea running through both our heads;—we thought of fire when we were gathering eggs, we talked of fire when, later in the day, we sat upon the rocks, resting ourselves, and we dreamed of fire when we fell asleep again,—not this time, however, under the eider-down where we had slept before, buton the green grass of the hillside, in the warm sunshine, under my overcoat, for we had turned night into day, and were determined to sleep when the sun was shining on us at the south, and do what work we had to do when we were in the shade.
“Every method that either of us had ever heard of for making a fire was remembered and talked over; but there was nothing that appeared to suit our case. I found a hard flint, and by striking it on the back of my knife-blade I saw that there was no difficulty in getting any number of sparks, but we had nothing that would catch the sparks when struck; so that we did not seem to be any better off than we were before; and, as I have stated already, we fell asleep again, each in his turn,—‘watch and watch,’ as the Dean playfully called it, and as they have it on shipboard,—without having arrived at any other result than that of being much discouraged.
“When we had been again refreshed with sleep, we determined to make a still further exploration of the island; so, after once more eating our fill of raw eggs, we set out. The Dean, being still weak and his head still paining him very much from the hurt, remained at the lookout. He could, however, walk up and down for a few hundred yards without losing sight of the only part of the sea that was free enough of ice to allow a ship to approach the island. After a while he came to where I had discovered the dead seal and narwhal lying on the beach, when upon my first journey round the island. I had told him about them, as indeed I had of everything I had seen, and he was curious to try if he could not catch a fox; but his fortune in that particular was not better than mine.
“For myself, I had a very profitable journey, as I found aplace among the rocks which might, with some labor in fixing it up, give us shelter. I was searching for a cave, but nothing of the sort could I come across; but at the head of a little valley, very near to where I left the Dean, I discovered a place that would, in some measure at least, answer the same purpose. Its situation gave it the still further advantage, that we commanded a perfect view of the sea from the front of it.
“I have said that it was not exactly a cave. It was rather a natural tent, as it were, of solid rocks. At the foot of a very steep slope there were several large masses of rough rocks heaped together, evidently having one day slid down from the cliffs above, and afterwards smaller rocks, being broken off, had piled up behind them. Two of these large rocks had come together in such a manner as to leave an open space between them. I should say this space was ten or twelve feet across at the bottom, and, rising up about ten feet high, joined at the top like the roof of a house. The rocks were pressed against them behind, so as completely to close the outlet in that direction. I climbed into this place, and was convinced that if we had strength to close up the front entrance with a wall, we should have a complete protection from the weather. But then, when I reflected how, if we did seek shelter there, we should keep ourselves warm, I had great misgivings; for then came up the question of all questions, ‘What should we do for a fire?’
“Although this place was not a cave, yet I spoke to the Dean about it as such, and by that name we came to know it; so I will now use the term, inappropriate though it is. I also told the Dean about some other birds that I had discovered in great numbers. They were very small, and seemed tohave their nests among the rocks all along the opposite side of the island, where they were swarming on the hillside, and flying overhead in even greater flocks than the ducks. I knew they were called ‘little auks,’ from descriptions the sailors had given me of them.
The Dean makes provision for a change of diet.The Dean makes provision for a change of diet.
“‘But look here what I’ve got,’ exclaimed the Dean, with an air of triumph, as soon as I came up with him. ‘See this big duck!’
“The fellow had actually caught a duck, and in a most ingenious manner. Seeing the ducks fly off their nests, the happy idea struck him that, if he could only contrive a trap, or ‘dead-fall,’ he might catch them when they came back.So he selected a nest favorable to his purpose, and then piled up some stones about it, making a solid wall on one side of it; then he put a thin narrow stone on the other side, and on this he supported still another stone that was very heavy. Then he took from his pocket a piece of twine which he was fortunate enough to have, and tied one end of it to the thin narrow stone, and, holding on to the other end, hid himself behind some rocks near by. When the duck came back to her nest, he jerked the thin narrow stone away by a strong pull on the twine string, and down came the heavy stone upon the duck’s back. ‘You should have heard the old thing quacking,’ said he, evidently forgetting everything else but the sport of catching the bird: ‘but I soon gave her neck a twist, and here we are ready for a dinner, when we only find a way to cook it. Have you discovered any way to make a fire yet?’
“I had to confess that on the subject of fire I was yet as ignorant as ever.
“‘Do you know,’ continued he, ‘that I have got an idea?’
“‘What is it?’ said I.
“‘Why,’ replied he, ‘you told me something about people making fire with a lens made of glass. Now, as I was down on the beach and looked at the ice there, I thought, why not make a lens out of ice,—it is as clear as glass?’
“‘How ridiculous!’ said I; ‘but suppose you could, what will you set on fire with it?’
“‘In the first place,’ he answered, ‘the pockets of my coat are made of some sort of cotton stuff, and if we could only set fire to that, couldn’t we blow a blaze into the fire plant, as you call it? See, I’ve gathered a great heap of it.’ And sure enough he had, for there was a pile of it nearly as high as his head, looking like a great heap of dry and green leaves.
“The idea did not seem to me to be worth much, but still, as it was the only one that had been suggested by either of us, it was at least worthy of trial; so we went down to the beach, and, finding a lump of ice about twice as big as my two fists, we began chipping it with my knife into the shape we wanted it, and then we ground it off with a stone, and then rubbed it over with our warm hands until we had worn it down perfectly smooth, and into the shape of a lens. This done, we held it up to the sun, relieving each other as our hands grew cold; but without any success whatever. We tried for a long time, and with much patience, until the ice became so much melted, that we could do nothing more with it, when we threw it away, and the experiment was abandoned as hopeless.
“Our disappointment at this failure was as great as the Dean’s hopes had been high. The Dean felt it most, for he was, at the very outset, perfectly confident of success. Neither of us, however, wished to own how much we felt the failure, so we spoke very little more together, but made, almost in silence, another meal off the raw eggs, and, being now quite worn out and weary with the labors and anxieties of the day, we passed the next twelve hours in watching and sleeping alternately in the bright sunshine, lying as before on the green grass, covered with the overcoat. We did not even dare hope for better fortune on the morrow. We had, however, made up our minds to struggle in the best manner we could against the difficulties which surrounded us, and mutually to sustain each other in the hard battle before us. Whether we should live or die was known but to God alone, and to his gracious protection we once more commended ourselves; the Dean repeating a prayer which he had learned from a piousand careful mother, who had brought him up in the fear of Heaven, and taught him, at a very early age, to have faith in God’s endless watchfulness.
“And now, my children,” concluded the Captain, “I have some work to do in my garden, to-day, so we must cut our story short this time. When you come to-morrow, I will tell you what next we did towards raising a fire, besides many other things for our safety and comfort.”
So the party scattered from the “cabin,”—the Captain to his work, and the children to play for a while with the Captain’s dogs, Port and Starboard, out among the trees; and to talk with Main Brace, whom they found to be the most singular boy they had ever seen; after which they went to the Captain to say “Good evening” to him, and then ran briskly home,—William eager to write down what he had heard, while it was yet fresh upon his memory, and all of them to relate to their parents, over and over again, what this wonderful old man had been telling them, and what a dear old soul he was.
CHAPTER X.Shows how Some Things may be done as well as Others, with God’s Help and with much Perseverance.
When the children next went to the “Mariner’s Rest,” it was unanimously agreed that they should go back again to the Captain’s “cabin,”—there were so many things that they had not seen, and which they wished to look at. Alice wanted to see the birds,—the owl with the great, big eyes, and the pelican that had no wings, at least only little stumps that were hardly an apology for wings. Fred wanted to see the Chinese junks and the little ship, while William was bent on having the Moorish gun, the Turkish sword, the Japanese “happy despatch,” and all the other weapons, offensive and defensive, taken down, that he might have a better view of them. The old man, at all times very ready and willing to gratify his little friends, was never more so than when he found them so much interested in the contents of his cabin; for every little curiosity or treasure there had an associationwith some period of his eventful life, and he was never happier than when any one admired what he admired so much, and thus gave him a chance to talk about it.
“Heyday!” said he, when all the children had spoken and made known their wishes, “I’m glad you take so kindly to the old man’s den; you shall come down there and look at it whenever you like, only you mustn’t toss the things about too much. Run in now, and make yourselves at home. I’ll be with you in a little while.”
So the children set off without another word, and were quickly diving among the old man’s treasures, while the Captain went back to his garden to finish the hoeing of his cabbages.
When the Captain had completed what he was about, he rejoined the children; and after a great deal of conversation which there is no need that we should here repeat, the party at length sobered down as if they were bent on business, and the Captain, once more drawing his little friends about him by the open window, again took up the tale.
“Now I told you yesterday,” said he, “that the Dean and I had gone asleep again after all our work and trouble and anxiety, without having come any nearer to getting up a fire. You have seen that we had enough to eat and drink, and that I had found a place to shelter us if a storm came on; but nothing could either of us think of to catch a spark. As soon as the Dean had opened his eyes, he said: ‘Why, this is too bad! indeed it is,—I thought I had been making a fire.’
“‘What with?’ I asked.
“‘With matches, to be sure,’ answered the Dean. ‘I thought I had a great load of them in my pocket.’
“‘Then,’ said I, ‘I’m sure I pity you, to wake up out of such a pleasant dream; for you’ll find no matches here, nor any fire either, nor do I think we shall ever have any.’
“‘O, don’t say that, Hardy,’ replied the Dean, sadly, ‘I don’t think we are so bad off as to say we never will have any fire. Do you really think we are?’
“‘I can’t say,’ I replied; ‘but what can we do?’
“‘Try again,’ answered the Dean;—and we were soon once more upon our feet, both very determined to do something, but neither of us knowing exactly what it should be.
“So we set off to inspect the cave which I told you of yesterday. The Dean was much pleased with it, and, seeing nothing better to do, we both went to work at once to build up a wall in front of it, feeling very sad and sorrowful as we worked in silence. But in spite of our gloomy thoughts we made good progress, and had soon a solid foundation laid; but as we went on, it was plain enough to see that our wall was likely to be of very little account, since we had no way of filling up the cracks between the stones.
“This set us once more to thinking. Down below us in the valley there was plenty of moss, or rather turf; but when we tried to pull it up with our hands, we discovered that we could do nothing with it, and we wished for something to dig with. Then I remembered the bones I had found on the beach; so I told the Dean about them, and we both agreed that they might be of use to us. The thing which I first thought of was the dead narwhal with the great long horn; and I imagined that, if we could only get that out of his head, we should have all we wanted.
“When the Dean and I went down to the narwhal, we foresaw that our task would be even greater than we hadsupposed; for the horn which we were after was so firmly embedded in the skull and flesh that it promised to be a very serious work to get it out.
“First, we had to cut away the flesh and fat from the thick nose, until we exposed the skull, and then we had to break the horn loose by dropping heavy stones upon the socket. At length we were successful. But we had consumed almost the whole day about it, and we found ourselves very much fatigued; so we sat down upon the green grass, and rested and talked for a while, before going back to work upon the wall again. The horn was very heavy, but it answered our purpose; and we were soon digging up the moss with it, and then we carried the moss up to help make out the wall. This moss was very soft, being full of water; and it fitted with the stones as nicely as any mason’s mortar, so that we had no more trouble in making the wall perfectly tight and solid. Nor did we have any trouble in building up a little fireplace and chimney along with it.
“We had some discussion as to what use there was in taking all this pains, since we had no fire to put in our fireplace. But then, if we should in the end find that we could make a fire, we saw that we would have to tear the wall down again if we did not build the fireplace and chimney up at once; therefore it was clearly better to take a little extra trouble now, and save it possibly in the end,—an observation that might apply to people who were never cast away in the cold, and did not have to build chimneys without knowing what use to put them to.
“We labored very hard, and were well satisfied with the progress we had made, when we found it necessary to knock off, and eat some more raw eggs, and sleep away our fatigue again.
“By this time we had grown tired enough of these raw eggs, and, in truth, were very sick of them. But we had nothing else to eat unless we should devour the duck which the Dean had caught; and this we could never, as we thought, bring ourselves to do, uncooked as it was.
“The Dean had by this time grown pretty strong again, but still he was so weak that I should not have allowed him to work had he not insisted upon it; so, when his turn came to go to sleep, I was glad to be at work by myself, and I much surprised the Dean, when he got up again, with what I had done.
“‘Do you know what I was thinking of?’ said the Dean, as we paused to rest, after we had again worked awhile together.
“‘What’s that?’ said I; ‘for I dare say it’s something clever, as you have a wise head on your young shoulders, Dean.’
“‘Thank you,’ said the Dean; ‘being cast away in the cold don’t stop us from paying compliments, anyway; but I was thinking that we ought to save all the blubber of that old narwhal down there; we’ll want the oil by and by.’
“‘What for?’ said I.
“‘To burn,’ said he.
“‘Nonsense!’ said I; ‘how are you going to burn it?’
“‘That’s just what we’re going to find out,’ said the Dean; ‘we’ll get a fire somehow, of that I’m sure.’
“‘I should like to know how,’ said I. ‘Perhaps you have another bright idea.’
“‘To be sure I have,’ answered the Dean.
“‘What is it this time?’ said I.
“‘Well, I don’t know,’ said he, ‘as there’s much in it, but I’m going to try the lens again.’
“‘That’s of no use,’ said I.
“‘I’m not so sure,’ said he; ‘you know we made a great deal of heat with our lens the other time,—so much that it almost burned my hand. I think the trouble was in my old pocket, which, having once been in salt water, wouldn’t burn; now I think I’ve found out something that is better.’
“‘What’s that?’ said I.
“‘Why, some cotton stuff,’ said he, ‘that I found blowing about among the stones.’
“‘Cotton!’ I exclaimed, in great surprise; ‘there’s no cotton growing here.’
“‘Well, it looks like cotton for all that,’ answered the Dean, ‘and I’m sure it will burn. Let me get some of it, and I’ll try it.’
“So the Dean ran off, and soon came back again with a little wad of white stuff, that looked very much like cotton, only much finer in its texture. I remembered it perfectly, for I had seen it, everywhere I went, about the little willow-bushes; and I had even plucked a willow-blossom to find it covered all over with this tender cotton-like substance, which I blew from it with my breath. But the idea had never once come into my head that it would be of any use.
“‘What are you going to do with this?’ said I to the Dean, when he had showed it to me.
“‘Why,’ said he, with much confidence, ‘I’m going to make another lens of ice, and set fire to it.’
"Striking fire under difficulties.""Striking fire under difficulties."
“To set fire to it was something easier said than done, yet the idea seemed to take root in my mind; and how or why it ever came about I can no more tell than I can fly, but somehow or other, it matters not what was my impulse or idea or expectation, the truth is, without saying a single word,I pulled out my knife and the bit of flint which I had found and carefully preserved the day before, and then struck one upon the other (as if it were quite mechanical) above the Dean’s little bit of cotton stuff, which lay upon the grass. A great shower of sparks was thrown off with each fresh stroke, and these told of the fineness of the steel and the hardness of the flint. I went on pounding and pounding away, as if resolved on something. And if I was resolved, my resolution was rewarded; for at length the Dean threw up his hands as suddenly as if a shot had struck him in the heart, and he shouted out, ‘A spark, a spark!’
“The Dean’s little bit of cotton stuff had taken fire, andthe daintiest little streak of smoke was curling upward from it.
“Without pausing an instant, quick as the hawk to swoop down upon its prey, quick as the lightning-flash, quick as thought itself, I threw away my knife and flint, and caught up the spark. The Dean drew instantly from his pocket the bit of cotton cloth which we had tried to light with the lens the day before, and thrust it in my hand. I put the spark upon it, and then blew.
“The first breath drove all the Dean’s light cotton stuff away, and the spark was gone.
“But we were now no longer where we were before. The Spark had been made once, and it could be made again; and our hearts were bounding with delight. ‘Hurrah! hurrah!’ shouted the Dean, ‘we’re all right now!’
“But our troubles about the fire were very far from ended. We had no difficulty in getting another spark to catch in another piece of this strange sort of tinder, of which we found great plenty near at hand. But it would not blaze. With the slightest breath it vanished almost as a flash of powder; and it was long before we hit upon anything that would do us any further good. We tried all the pieces of cotton cloth that we had about our clothes, picking it into shreds, and, putting the lighted tinder among these shreds, tried to make them blaze. But no blaze could we get. Once only did we raise a little flash, but it was gone in a single instant. We tried the dry leaves of the fire-plant (Andromeda), the dry grass,—everything, indeed, we could think of that was within our reach,—but still no blaze, no blaze.
“With sore fingers and wearied patience, and with wits as well as bodies quite exhausted, we fell once more asleep, withmingling thoughts of triumph and disappointment, and with prayerful hopes for what the morrow might bring forth running through our minds.
“When the morrow came, a chance seemed to open for us; and we resolved to go about our work with caution, determined, since we had gone thus far, that we would in the end succeed. I don’t know whether it was the Dean or I that first suggested it, but we made up our minds that themosswhich we had turned up with the narwhal horn, when we were building at the hut, some of which had dried, would burn. We picked to pieces some of the long fibres of this moss, and laid upon them, loosely, some fragments of the tinder. A spark was struck as before, and upon blowing this a bright blaze flashed up, and then died out again as quickly as it had come.
“‘I have it now!’ shouted the Dean, ‘we’re sure of it next time!’ and without saying another word he darted off towards the beach. When he came back again, he held in one hand a chunk of blubber from the narwhal, out of which we squeezed some drops of oil, and soaked in them some fibres of the moss.
“Another piece of tinder and another piece of moss were placed as they had been before; another spark was struck, another blaze was blown, and when this came, the Dean was holding in it his fibres of oil-soaked moss, and we soon had a lighted torch. ‘Hurrah, hurrah!’ we might well shout now, for the thing was done. ‘Praised be Heaven! we have got a fire at last!’
“Then we added fresh moss to the flaming torch, which was scarcely larger than a match, and then a few more drops of oil were added, and so on, oil and moss, and moss and oil, little by little, gently, gently all the time, until we had secured at length a good and solid flame.
“Then we laid the burning moss upon a flat stone, and then, as before, moss and oil, and oil and moss, were added, each time in larger and larger quantities,—no longer gently, gently, but with a careless hand, and in less, perhaps, than half an hour we had a great, smoking, fluttering blaze; and then we threw on some of the driest leaves and twigs of the Andromeda, and some dead willow-stems and dry grass, and then we had a roaring, sputtering, red-hot fire.
“And how we danced, and skipped, and shouted round the fire, like happy children round some new-found toy!
“The next thing was, of course, to turn the fire to some account. On two sides of the blaze we placed large square stones, and over these we put another that was thin and flat; and then we skinned the duck which the Dean had caught, and cut the rich flesh into little pieces and placed them on the flat stone above the blaze; and then, to keep the smoke and ashes from the cooking food, we put another light, thin stone upon the flesh, and then we watched and waited for the coming meal. To help the fire along, and make it burn more quickly, we threw into it some little chunks of blubber, and then, in a little while, the duck was cooked.
“O what a royal meal we had!—we half-famished, shipwrecked boys,—the first hot food we had tasted during all these long, weary, dreary days; and, not satisfied with the duck, we next broiled some eggs upon the heated stone, and ate and ate away until we were as full as we could hold.
“All this had consumed many hours, and all the time we had been so much excited that we found ourselves quite exhausted when the meal was over, and we could do no more work that day; so we lay down again upon the grass, to talk and rest and sleep. When we came to sleep, however, we hadnow another motive, besides watching for a ship, to make us sleep one only at a time; for we must keep this fire going, which we had got with so much trouble. This was easily done, since we only had to add, from time to time, some branches of the Andromeda, and these kept up a smouldering fire.
“Before either of us went to sleep, we had seen that the first thing now was to catch more ducks; and this we could either of us do, besides watching the sea for ships, and the fire that it did not go out. Accordingly, as soon as the Dean had fallen asleep, I went about this work, fully resolved upon a plan as to how I should proceed. The knowledge of seals which I had acquired when in theBlackbirdhad perhaps something to do with it.
“I knew, from the thickness of the seal’s skin, that lines could be made out of it very well. You will remember the dead seal that I told you of the other day, lying down on the beach, where it had been thrown up out of the sea by the waves. I forgot to mention, in addition, that we found several other seals, or rather, I should say, parts of them, for most of them had been eaten up by the foxes, or had gone to pieces by decay. So I at once went down, as I was going to say, to the seal that I had first discovered, and, taking out my knife, I made a cut around his neck, close behind the ears. It was a very large seal, and I found it not an easy matter to lift him up so that I could get my knife all the way around him; but I managed to do it notwithstanding, and made not only one cut but a great many of them,—or rather, I should say, one continuous cut around and around the body of the dead animal; so you will easily understand that, in this way, by keeping my knife about an eighth of an inch from whereit had gone before when it passed around, I obtained at last a long string, or rather one might say a thong, very strong and very pliable. It must have been at least a hundred feet in length when I stopped cutting it, and I divided it into three parts. Having done this, I next went back to where the ducks were thickest, when, of course, the birds flew off their nests. Then I fixed four traps, just as the Dean had done, tying to three of them the seal-skin strings which I had made, and to the fourth I tied the Dean’s bit of twine; then I hid myself among the rocks, and waited for the birds to come back.
“I had not long to wait, for in a few minutes two of them returned, and, without appearing to mind at all the trap that I had set for them, crawled upon their nests so quickly that it seemed as if they were mightily afraid their eggs would get cold. Seeing a third one coming, I waited for her too, and the fourth one came soon afterwards; and indeed, by this time, nearly all the birds that had their nests near by had come back to them. As soon as all was quiet, I pulled my strings one after another as quickly as I could, and three of the birds were caught; but the last one was too smart for me, as the noise made by the others had startled her, and the heavy stone only struck her tail as she went squalling and fluttering away, frightening off all the other ducks that were anywhere near.
“I was not long, as you may be sure, in securing my three prizes; and I carried them at once up to the fire near which the Dean was lying under my overcoat in the sun. Soon after this the Dean awoke, and, when he saw what I had done, seemed to be much amused, as he declared that I had stolen his patent; but when he saw what kind of a line I hadmade, he was filled with admiration, saying: ‘Well, who would ever have thought of that? I’m sure I never should.’
“Being now very tired, I lay down while the Dean took his ‘turn’; and by the time my eyes were opened again he had caught seven birds, so that we had now in all ten,—enough, probably, to last us as many days. This, of course, gave us a great deal of satisfaction, especially as we soon had one of them nicely cooked, and thus got a good breakfast.
“We had now been, you see, several days on the island, and we felt that we had done pretty well already towards providing for ourselves. The Dean, as I ought to have mentioned before, had grown in strength very rapidly during the last forty-eight hours; and except that his head was still sore from the cut and bruise, he was entirely well.
“We felt now that, whatever else might happen to us, we could not want for food, as, besides the eggs, we could have as many ducks as we pleased to catch. We had succeeded in making a fire, and had abundant means to keep it burning. There were only two things that seriously troubled us. One was our lack of shelter, if a storm should come; and the other, our lack of proper clothing, if the weather should grow cold. But, having succeeded so well thus far, we were very hopeful for the future. Heaven had kindly favored us. The temperature had been very mild all the time. There had been no wind, and scarcely a cloud to obscure the sky. As for shelter, we felt that we could manage in two days to enclose the cave; and as to the other trouble, although we were not very clear in our minds about it, yet we did not lose confidence that a ship would come along and take us off before winter should set in. So we resolved not to abandon our vigilance, but to keep up a constant watch, as we had done before.Now that we had made a fire, we knew the smoke would be a great help to us in drawing the attention of the people on board any ship that might come near.
“With these agreeable reflections we went to work much more cheerfully than we had done before.”
The captain here “hove to,” as he said, observing, that, the day being far spent, he would drop the story for the present. “To-morrow, when you come, I will tell you how we fixed up the cave, and made ourselves more comfortable in many ways. Meanwhile you can reflect upon what I have told you, and you can answer me then whether you think John Hardy and Richard Dean were an enviable pair of boys.”
“I can answer that now,” said William.
“Well, what is the answer?” asked the Captain, in great good-humor.
“Why, their pluck and courage everybody would envy, or at least they ought to; but, for the rest, I would rather stay at home.”
“Well, well,” said the Captain, smiling pleasantly, “each to his taste. I rather think I should prefer being in the ‘Mariner’s Rest’ myself”;—saying which he led the way into the grounds in front of the cottage which he loved so well, where he took leave of his little friends once more, making them promise over and over again (for which there was no need at all) that they would come next day and hear about the cave, and how they there built themselves a shelter from the Arctic storms.