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 unanimouslyagreed that they should go back again to the Captain's "cabin,"--therewere so many things that they had not seen, and which they wished tolook at. Alice wanted to see the birds,--the owl with the great, bigeyes, and the pelican that had no wings, at least only little stumpsthat were hardly an apology for wings. Fred wanted to see the Chinesejunks and the little ship, while William was bent on having the Moorishgun, the Turkish sword, the Japanese "happy despatch," and all the otherweapons, offensive and defensive, taken down, that he might have abetter view of them. The old man, at all times very ready and willing togratify his little friends, was never more so than when he found them somuch interested in the contents of his cabin; for every little curiosityor treasure there had an association with some period of his eventfullife, and he was never happier than when any one admired what he admiredso much, and thus gave him a chance to talk about it.
"Heyday!" said he, when all the children had spoken and made known theirwishes, "I'm glad you take so kindly to the old man's den; you shallcome down there and look at it whenever you like, only you mustn't tossthe 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 divingamong the old man's treasures, while the Captain went back to his gardento finish the hoeing of his cabbages.
When the Captain had completed what he was about, he rejoined thechildren; and after a great deal of conversation which there is no needthat we should here repeat, the party at length sobered down as if theywere bent on business, and the Captain, once more drawing his littlefriends about him by the open window, again took up the tale.
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"Now I told you yesterday," said he, "that the Dean and I had goneasleep again after all our work and trouble and anxiety, without havingcome any nearer to getting up a fire. You have seen that we had enoughto eat and drink, and that I had found a place to shelter us if a stormcame on; but nothing could either of us think of to catch a spark. Assoon 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 greatload of them in my pocket.'
"'Then,' said I, 'I'm sure I pity you, to wake up out of such a pleasantdream; for you'll find no matches here, nor any fire either, nor do Ithink we shall ever have any.'
"'O, don't say that, Hardy,' replied the Dean, sadly, 'I don't think weare so bad off as to say we never will have any fire. Do you reallythink 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 ourfeet, both very determined to do something, but neither of us knowingexactly what it should be.
"So we set off to inspect the cave which I told you of yesterday. TheDean was much pleased with it, and, seeing nothing better to do, we bothwent to work at once to build up a wall in front of it, feeling very sadand sorrowful as we worked in silence. But in spite of our gloomythoughts 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 likelyto be of very little account, since we had no way of filling up thecracks between the stones.
"This set us once more to thinking. Down below us in the valley therewas plenty of moss, or rather turf; but when we tried to pull it up withour hands, we discovered that we could do nothing with it, and we wishedfor something to dig with. Then I remembered the bones I had found onthe beach; so I told the Dean about them, and we both agreed that theymight be of use to us. The thing which I first thought of was the deadnarwhal with the great long horn; and I imagined that, if we could onlyget 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 taskwould be even greater than we had supposed; for the horn which we wereafter was so firmly embedded in the skull and flesh that it promised tobe a very serious work to get it out.
"First, we had to cut away the flesh and fat from the thick nose, untilwe exposed the skull, and then we had to break the horn loose bydropping heavy stones upon the socket. At length we were successful. Butwe had consumed almost the whole day about it, and we found ourselvesvery much fatigued; so we sat down upon the green grass, and rested andtalked for a while, before going back to work upon the wall again. Thehorn was very heavy, but it answered our purpose; and we were soondigging up the moss with it, and then we carried the moss up to helpmake out the wall. This moss was very soft, being full of water; and itfitted with the stones as nicely as any mason's mortar, so that we hadno more trouble in making the wall perfectly tight and solid. Nor did wehave any trouble in building up a little fireplace and chimney alongwith it.
"We had some discussion as to what use there was in taking all thispains, since we had no fire to put in our fireplace. But then, if weshould in the end find that we could make a fire, we saw that we wouldhave to tear the wall down again if we did not build the fireplace andchimney up at once; therefore it was clearly better to take a littleextra trouble now, and save it possibly in the end,--an observation thatmight apply to people who were never cast away in the cold, and did nothave to build chimneys without knowing what use to put them to.
"We labored very hard, and were well satisfied with the progress we hadmade, when we found it necessary to knock off, and eat some more raweggs, and sleep away our fatigue again.
"By this time we had grown tired enough of these raw eggs, and, intruth, were very sick of them. But we had nothing else to eat unless weshould devour the duck which the Dean had caught; and this we couldnever, as we thought, bring ourselves to do, uncooked as it was.
"The Dean had by this time grown pretty strong again, but still he wasso weak that I should not have allowed him to work had he not insistedupon it; so, when his turn came to go to sleep, I was glad to be at workby myself, and I much surprised the Dean, when he got up again, withwhat I had done.
"'Do you know what I was thinking of?' said the Dean, as we paused torest, after we had again worked awhile together.
"'What's that?' said I; 'for I dare say it's something clever, as youhave a wise head on your young shoulders, Dean.'
"'Thank you,' said the Dean; 'being cast away in the cold don't stop usfrom paying compliments, anyway; but I was thinking that we ought tosave all the blubber of that old narwhal down there; we'll want the oilby 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 afire somehow, of that I'm sure.'
"'I should like to know how,' said I. 'Perhaps you have another brightidea.'
"'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 totry 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 withour lens the other time,--so much that it almost burned my hand. I thinkthe 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 amongthe stones.'
"'Cotton!' I exclaimed, in great surprise; 'there's no cotton growinghere.'
"'Well, it looks like cotton for all that,' answered the Dean, 'and I'msure 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 ofwhite stuff, that looked very much like cott
on, only much finer in itstexture. I remembered it perfectly, for I had seen it, everywhere Iwent, about the little willow-bushes; and I had even plucked awillow-blossom to find it covered all over with this tender cotton-likesubstance, which I blew from it with my breath. But the idea had neveronce 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 hadshowed it to me.
"'Why,' said he, with much confidence, 'I'm going to make another lensof ice, and set fire to it.'
"Striking fire under difficulties."]
"To set fire to it was something easier said than done, yet the ideaseemed to take root in my mind; and how or why it ever came about I canno more tell than I can fly, but somehow or other, it matters not whatwas my impulse or idea or expectation, the truth is, without saying asingle word, I pulled out my knife and the bit of flint which I hadfound and carefully preserved the day before, and then struck one uponthe other (as if it were quite mechanical) above the Dean's little bitof cotton stuff, which lay upon the grass. A great shower of sparks wasthrown off with each fresh stroke, and these told of the fineness of thesteel and the hardness of the flint. I went on pounding and poundingaway, as if resolved on something. And if I was resolved, my resolutionwas rewarded; for at length the Dean threw up his hands as suddenly asif a shot had struck him in the heart, and he shouted out, 'A spark, aspark!'
"The Dean's little bit of cotton stuff had taken fire, and thedaintiest little streak of smoke was curling upward from it.
"Without pausing an instant, quick as the hawk to swoop down upon itsprey, quick as the lightning-flash, quick as thought itself, I threwaway my knife and flint, and caught up the spark. The Dean drewinstantly from his pocket the bit of cotton cloth which we had tried tolight with the lens the day before, and thrust it in my hand. I put thespark upon it, and then blew.
"The first breath drove all the Dean's light cotton stuff away, and thespark was gone.
"But we were now no longer where we were before. The Spark had been madeonce, and it could be made again; and our hearts were bounding withdelight. 'Hurrah! hurrah!' shouted the Dean, 'we're all right now!'
"But our troubles about the fire were very far from ended. We had nodifficulty in getting another spark to catch in another piece of thisstrange sort of tinder, of which we found great plenty near at hand. Butit would not blaze. With the slightest breath it vanished almost as aflash of powder; and it was long before we hit upon anything that woulddo us any further good. We tried all the pieces of cotton cloth that wehad about our clothes, picking it into shreds, and, putting the lightedtinder among these shreds, tried to make them blaze. But no blaze couldwe get. Once only did we raise a little flash, but it was gone in asingle instant. We tried the dry leaves of the fire-plant (Andromeda),the dry grass,--everything, indeed, we could think of that was withinour reach,--but still no blaze, no blaze.
"With sore fingers and wearied patience, and with wits as well as bodiesquite exhausted, we fell once more asleep, with mingling thoughts oftriumph and disappointment, and with prayerful hopes for what the morrowmight bring forth running through our minds.
"When the morrow came, a chance seemed to open for us; and we resolvedto go about our work with caution, determined, since we had gone thusfar, that we would in the end succeed. I don't know whether it was theDean or I that first suggested it, but we made up our minds that themoss which we had turned up with the narwhal horn, when we werebuilding at the hut, some of which had dried, would burn. We picked topieces some of the long fibres of this moss, and laid upon them,loosely, some fragments of the tinder. A spark was struck as before, andupon blowing this a bright blaze flashed up, and then died out again asquickly as it had come.
"'I have it now!' shouted the Dean, 'we're sure of it next time!' andwithout saying another word he darted off towards the beach. When hecame back again, he held in one hand a chunk of blubber from thenarwhal, out of which we squeezed some drops of oil, and soaked in themsome fibres of the moss.
"Another piece of tinder and another piece of moss were placed as theyhad been before; another spark was struck, another blaze was blown, andwhen this came, the Dean was holding in it his fibres of oil-soakedmoss, and we soon had a lighted torch. 'Hurrah, hurrah!' we might wellshout now, for the thing was done. 'Praised be Heaven! we have got afire at last!'
"Then we added fresh moss to the flaming torch, which was scarcelylarger than a match, and then a few more drops of oil were added, and soon, oil and moss, and moss and oil, little by little, gently, gently allthe 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 andlarger 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 andtwigs of the Andromeda, and some dead willow-stems and dry grass, andthen we had a roaring, sputtering, red-hot fire.
"And how we danced, and skipped, and shouted round the fire, like happychildren round some new-found toy!
"The next thing was, of course, to turn the fire to some account. On twosides of the blaze we placed large square stones, and over these we putanother that was thin and flat; and then we skinned the duck which theDean had caught, and cut the rich flesh into little pieces and placedthem on the flat stone above the blaze; and then, to keep the smoke andashes from the cooking food, we put another light, thin stone upon theflesh, and then we watched and waited for the coming meal. To help thefire along, and make it burn more quickly, we threw into it some littlechunks of blubber, and then, in a little while, the duck was cooked.
"O what a royal meal we had!--we half-famished, shipwrecked boys,--thefirst hot food we had tasted during all these long, weary, dreary days;and, not satisfied with the duck, we next broiled some eggs upon theheated stone, and ate and ate away until we were as full as we couldhold.
"All this had consumed many hours, and all the time we had been so muchexcited 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 thegrass, to talk and rest and sleep. When we came to sleep, however, wehad now another motive, besides watching for a ship, to make us sleepone only at a time; for we must keep this fire going, which we had gotwith 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 asmouldering fire.
"Before either of us went to sleep, we had seen that the first thing nowwas to catch more ducks; and this we could either of us do, besideswatching 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 thiswork, fully resolved upon a plan as to how I should proceed. Theknowledge of seals which I had acquired when in the _Blackbird_ hadperhaps something to do with it.
"I knew, from the thickness of the seal's skin, that lines could be madeout of it very well. You will remember the dead seal that I told you ofthe other day, lying down on the beach, where it had been thrown up outof the sea by the waves. I forgot to mention, in addition, that we foundseveral other seals, or rather, I should say, parts of them, for most ofthem had been eaten up by the foxes, or had gone to pieces by decay. SoI at once went down, as I was going to say, to the seal that I had firstdiscovered, 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 aneasy matter to lift him up so that I could get my knife all the wayaround him; but I managed to do it notwithstanding, and made not onlyone cut but a great many of them,--or rather, I should say, onecontinuous cut around and around the body of the dead animal; so youwill easily understand that, in this way, by keeping my knife about aneighth of an inch from where it had gone before when it passed around,I obtained at last a long string, or rather one might say a thong, verystrong and very pliable. It must have been at least a hundred feet inlength w
hen 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 fourtraps, just as the Dean had done, tying to three of them the seal-skinstrings which I had made, and to the fourth I tied the Dean's bit oftwine; then I hid myself among the rocks, and waited for the birds tocome 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 weremightily afraid their eggs would get cold. Seeing a third one coming, Iwaited 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 comeback to them. As soon as all was quiet, I pulled my strings one afteranother as quickly as I could, and three of the birds were caught; butthe last one was too smart for me, as the noise made by the others hadstartled her, and the heavy stone only struck her tail as she wentsqualling and fluttering away, frightening off all the other ducks thatwere anywhere near.
"I was not long, as you may be sure, in securing my three prizes; and Icarried them at once up to the fire near which the Dean was lying undermy overcoat in the sun. Soon after this the Dean awoke, and, when he sawwhat I had done, seemed to be much amused, as he declared that I hadstolen his patent; but when he saw what kind of a line I had made, hewas filled with admiration, saying: 'Well, who would ever have thoughtof that? I'm sure I never should.'
"Being now very tired, I lay down while the Dean took his 'turn'; and bythe time my eyes were opened again he had caught seven birds, so that wehad now in all ten,--enough, probably, to last us as many days. This, ofcourse, gave us a great deal of satisfaction, especially as we soon hadone of them nicely cooked, and thus got a good breakfast.
"We had now been, you see, several days on the island, and we felt thatwe had done pretty well already towards providing for ourselves. TheDean, as I ought to have mentioned before, had grown in strength veryrapidly during the last forty-eight hours; and except that his head wasstill sore from the cut and bruise, he was entirely well.
"We felt now that, whatever else might happen to us, we could not wantfor food, as, besides the eggs, we could have as many ducks as wepleased to catch. We had succeeded in making a fire, and had abundantmeans to keep it burning. There were only two things that seriouslytroubled us. One was our lack of shelter, if a storm should come; andthe other, our lack of proper clothing, if the weather should grow cold.But, having succeeded so well thus far, we were very hopeful for thefuture. Heaven had kindly favored us. The temperature had been very mildall the time. There had been no wind, and scarcely a cloud to obscurethe sky. As for shelter, we felt that we could manage in two days toenclose the cave; and as to the other trouble, although we were not veryclear in our minds about it, yet we did not lose confidence that a shipwould come along and take us off before winter should set in. So weresolved 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 smokewould be a great help to us in drawing the attention of the people onboard any ship that might come near.
"With these agreeable reflections we went to work much more cheerfullythan we had done before."
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The captain here "hove to," as he said, observing, that, the day beingfar spent, he would drop the story for the present. "To-morrow, when youcome, I will tell you how we fixed up the cave, and made ourselves morecomfortable in many ways. Meanwhile you can reflect upon what I havetold you, and you can answer me then whether you think John Hardy andRichard 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 theyought 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 thecottage which he loved so well, where he took leave of his littlefriends once more, making them promise over and over again (for whichthere was no need at all) that they would come next day and hear aboutthe cave, and how they there built themselves a shelter from the Arcticstorms.