CHAPTER XX.
A MERRY EVENING.
By the time we had reached the bottom of the hollow Tassard was blowinglike a bellows with the uncommon exertion; and swearing that he felt thecold penetrating his bones, and that he should be stupefied again if hedid not mind, he climbed into the ship and disappeared. I loved him solittle that secretly I very heartily wished that nature would make awaywith him: I mean that something it would be impossible in me to lay tomy conscience should befall him, as becoming comatose again, and solying like one dead. Assuredly in such a case it was not this hand thatwould have wasted a drop of brandy in returning an evil, white-livered,hectoring old rascal to a life that smelled foully with him and the likeof him.
It was so still a day that the cold did not try me sorely: there wasvitality if not warmth in the light of the sun, and I was heated withclambering. So I stayed a full half-hour after my companion had vanishedexamining the ice about the schooner; which careful inspection repaid meto the extent of giving me to see that if by blasts of gunpowder I couldsucceed in rupturing the ice ahead of the schooner's bows there was avery good chance of the mass on which she lay going adrift. Yet I willnot deny that though I recognized this business of dislocation as ouronly chance--for I could see little or nothing to be done in the way ofbuilding a boat proper to swim and ply--I foreboded a dismal issue toour adventure, even should we succeed in separating this block from themain. In fine, what I feared was that the weight of the schooner wouldoverset the ice and drown her and us.
I entered the ship and found Tassard roasting himself in the cook-house.
"How melancholy is this gloom," said I, "after the glorious whitesunshine!"
"Yes," said he, "but it is warm. That is enough for me. Curse the cold,say I. It robs a man of all spirit. To grapple with this rigour oneshould have fed all one's life on blubber. I defy a man to be brave whenhe is half-frozen. I feel a match for any three men now; but on theheights a flea would have made me run."
He pulled a pot from the bricks and filled his pannikin.
"I have been surveying the ice," said I, drawing to the furnace, "andhave very little doubt that if we wisely bestow the powder in greatquantities we shall succeed in dislocating the bed on which we arelying."
"Good!" he cried.
"But after?" said I.
"What?"
"As much of this bed as may be dislodged will not be deep: icebergs, asof course you know, capsize in consequence of their becoming top-heavyby the wasting of the bulk that is submerged. This block will make but asmall berg should we liberate it, and I very much fear that the weightof the schooner will overset it the instant we are launched."
"Body of Moses!" he cried angrily, knitting his brows, whereby hestretched the scar to half its usual width, "what's to be done, then?"
"She is a full ship," said I, "and weighty. If the liberated ice be thinshe may sit up on it and keep it under. We have a right to hope in thatdirection, perhaps. Yet there is another consideration. She may leaklike a sieve!"
"Why?" he exclaimed. "She took the ice smoothly; she has not beenstrained; she was as tight as a bottle before she stranded; the coatingof ice will have cherished her; and a stout ship like this does notsuffer from six months of lying up!"
Six months, thought I!
"Well, it may be as you say; but if she leaks it will not be in our fourarms to keep her free."
He exclaimed hotly, "Mr. Rodney, if we are to escape, we must venturesomething. To stay here means death in the end. I am persuaded that thisice is joined with some vast main body far south and that it does notmove. What is there, then, to wait for? There is promise in yourgunpowder proposal. If she capsizes then the devil will get his own."And with a savage flourish of the pannikin he put it to his lips anddrained it.
His sullen determination that we should stand or fall by my scheme wasnot very useful to me. I had looked for some shrewdness in him, somecapacity of originating and weighing ideas; but I found he could dolittle more than curse and swagger and ply his can, in which he foundmost of his anecdotes and recollections and not a little of his courage.I pulled out my watch, as I must call it, and observed that it was hardupon one o'clock.
"'Tis lucky," said he, eying the watch greedily and coming to it awayfrom the great subject of our deliverance as though the sight of thefine gold thing with its jewelled letter extinguished every otherthought in him, "that you removed that watch from Mendoza. But he willhave carried other good things to the bottom with him, I fear."
"His flask and tobacco-box I took away," said I. "He had nothing ofconsequence besides."
"They must go into the common-chest," cried he; "'tis share and share,you know."
"Ay," said I, "but what I found on Mendoza is mine by the highest rightunder heaven. If I had not taken the things, they would now be at thebottom of the sea."
"What of that?" cried he savagely. "If we had not plundered the galleon,she might have been wrecked and taken all she had down with her. Yetshould such a consideration hinder a fair division as betweenus--between you who had nothing to do with the pillage and me who riskedmy life in it?"
I said, "Very well; be it as you say," appearing to consent, for therewas something truly absurd in an altercation about a few guineas' worthof booty in the face of our melancholy and most perilous situation;though it not only enabled me to send a deeper glance into the mind ofthis man than I had yet been able to manage, but made me understand areason for the bloody and furious quarrels which have again and againarisen among persons standing on the brink of eternity, to whom a cup ofdrink or the sight of a ship had been more precious than the contents ofthe Bank of England.
I set about getting the dinner.
"Whilst you are at that work," cried he, starting up, "I'll overhaul thepockets of the bodies on deck;" and, picking up a chopper, away hewent, and I heard him cursing in his native tongue as he stumbled to thecompanion-ladder through the darkness in the cabin.
His rapacity was beyond credence. There was an immense treasure in thehold, yet he could not leave the pockets of the two poor wretches ondeck alone. I did not envy him his task. The frozen figures would bear adeal of hammering; and besides he had to work in the cold. Ah, thought Iwith a groan, I should have left him to make one of them!
I had finished my dinner by the time he arrived. He produced the watch Ihad taken from and returned to the mate's pocket when I had searched himfor a tinder-box; also a gold snuff-box set with diamonds, and a fewSpanish pieces in gold. On seeing these things I remembered that I hadfound some rings and money in his pockets whilst overhauling him formeans to obtain fire; but I held my peace.
"Should not we have been imbeciles to sacrifice these beauties?" hecried, viewing the watch and snuff-box with a rapturous grin.
"They were hard to come at, I expect?"
"No," he answered, pocketing them and turning to a piece of beef in theoven. "I knocked away the ice and after a little wrenching got at thepockets. But poor Trentanove! d'ye know, his nose came away with themask of ice! He is no longer lovely to the sight!" He broke into aguffaw, then stuffed his mouth full and talked in the intervals ofchewing. "There was nothing worth taking on Barros. They are bothoverboard."
"Overboard!" I cried.
"Why, yes," said he. "They are no good on deck. I stood them against therail, then tipped them over."
This was an illustration of his strength I did not much relish.
"I doubt if I could have lifted Barros," said I.
"Not you!" he exclaimed, running his eye over me. "A dead Dutchman wouldhave the weight of a fairy alongside Barros."
"Well, Mr. Tassard," said I, "since you are so strong, you will be veryuseful to our scheme. There is much to be done."
"Give me a sketch of your plans, that I may understand you," heexclaimed, continuing to eat very heartily.
"First of all," said I, "we shall have to break the powder-barrels outof the magazine and hoist them on deck. There are tackles, I suppose?"
"Yo
u should be able to find what you want among the boatswain's storesin the run," he replied.
"There are some splits wide enough to receive a whole barrel of powder,"said I. "I counted four such yawns all happily lying in a line athwartthe ice past the bows. I propose to sink these barrels twenty feet deep,where they must hang from a piece of spar across the aperture."
He nodded.
"Have you any slow-matches aboard?"
"Plenty among the gunner's stores," he replied.
"There are but you and me," said I; "these operations will take time. Wemust mind not to be blown up by one barrel whilst we are suspendinganother. We shall have to lower the barrels with their matches on fireand they must be timed to burn an hour."
"Ay, certainly, at least an hour," he exclaimed. "Two hours would bebetter."
"Well, that must depend upon the number of parcels of matches we meetwith. There will be a good many mines to spring, and one must notexplode before another. 'Tis the united force of the several blastswhich we must reckon on. The contents of at least four more barrels ofpowder we must distribute amongst the other chinks and splits in suchparcels as they will be able to receive."
"And then?"
"And then," said I, "we must await the explosion and trust to the mercyof Heaven to help us."
He made a hideous face, as if this was a sort of talk to nauseate him,and said, "Do you propose that we should remain on board or watch theeffects from a distance?"
"Why, remain on board of course," I answered. "Suppose the minesliberated the ice on which the schooner lies and it floated away, whatshould we, watching at a distance, do?"
"True," cried he, "but it is cursed perilous. The explosion might blowthe ship up."
"No, it will not do that. We shall be bad engineers if we bring such athing about. The danger will be--providing the schooner is released--inher capsizing, as I have before pointed out."
"Enough!" cried he, charging his pannikin for the third time. "We mustchance her capsizing."
"If I had a crew at my back," said I, "I would carry an anchor and cableto the shoulder of the cliff at the end of the slope to hold the ship ifshe swam. I would also put a quantity of provisions on the ice alongwith materials for making us shelter and the whole of the stock of coal,so that we could go on supporting life here if the schooner capsized."
"Then," said he, "you would remain ashore during the explosion?"
"Most certainly. But as all these preparations would mean a degree oflabour impracticable by us two men, I am for the bold venture--prepareand fire the mines, return to the ship, and leave the rest toProvidence."
He made another ugly face and indulged himself in a piece of profanitythat was inexpressibly disgusting and mean in the mouth of a man who wasused to cross himself when alarmed and swear by the saints. But perhapshe knew, even better than I, how little he had to expect fromProvidence. He filled his pipe, exclaiming that when he had smoked itout we should fall to work.
Now that I had settled a plan I was eager to put it into practice--hotand wild indeed with the impatience and hope of the castaway animatedwith the dream of recovering his liberty and preserving his life; and Iwas the more anxious to set about the business at once, on account ofthe weather being fair and still, for if it came on to blow a stormywind again we should be forced as before under hatches. But I had towait for the Frenchman to empty his pipe. He was so complete asensualist that I believe nothing short of terror could have forced himto shorten the period of a pleasure by a second of time. He went onpuffing so deliberately, with such leisurely enjoyment of the flavour ofthe smoke, that I expected to see him fall asleep; and my patiencebecoming exhausted I jumped up; but by this time his bowl held nothingbut black ashes.
"Now," cried he, "to work."
And he rose with a prodigious yawn and seized the lanthorn. Our firstbusiness was to hunt among the boatswain's stores in the run for tacklesto hoist the powder-barrels up with. There was a good collection, asmight have been expected in a pirate whose commerce lay in slinginggoods from other ships' holds into her own; but the ropes were frozen ashard as iron, to remedy which we carried an armful to the cook-house,and left the tackles to lie and soften. We also conveyed to thecook-house a quantity of ratline stuff--a thin rope used for making ofthe steps in the shroud ladders; this being a line that would exactlyserve to suspend the smaller parcels of powder in the splits. Beforetouching the powder-barrels we put a lighted candle into the bull's eyelamp over the door and removed the lanthorn to a safe distance. Tassardwas perfectly well acquainted with the contents of this storeroom, andon my asking for the matches put his hand on one of several bags ofthem. They varied in length, some being six inches and some making a bigcoil. There was nothing for it but to sample and test them, and this Itold Tassard could be done that evening. The main hatch was just forwardof the gun-room bulkhead; we seized a handspike apiece and went to workto prize the cover open. It was desperate tough labour; as bad as tryingto open an oyster with a soft blade. The Frenchman broke out into manystrange old-fashioned oaths in his own tongue, imagining the hatch to befrozen; but though I don't doubt the frost had something to do with it,its obstinacy was mainly owing to time, that had soldered it, so tospeak, with the stubbornness that eight-and-forty years will communicateto a fixture which ice has cherished and kept sound.
We got the hatch open at last--be pleased to know that I am speaking ofthe hatch in the lower deck, for there was another immediately over iton the upper or main deck--and returning to the powder-room rolled thebarrels forward ready for slinging and hoisting away when we should haverigged a tackle aloft. We had not done much, but what we had done hadeaten far into the afternoon.
"I am tired and hungry and thirsty," said the Frenchman. "Let us knockoff. We have made good progress. No use opening the main-deck hatchto-night: the vessel is cold enough even when hermetically corked."
"Very well," said I, bringing my watch to the lanthorn and observingthe time to be sundown: so, carefully extinguishing the candle in thebull's-eye lamp, we took each of us a bag of matches and went to thecook-room.
There was neither tea nor coffee in the ship. I so pined for thesesoothing drinks that I would have given all the wine in the vessel for afew pounds of either one of them. A senseless, ungracious yearning,indeed, in the face of the plenty that was aboard! but it was theplenty, perhaps, that provoked it. There was chocolate, which theFrenchman frothed and drank with hearty enjoyment; he also devouredhandfuls of _succades_, which he would wash down with wine. These thingsmade me sick, and for drink I was forced upon the spirits and wine, thelatter of which was so generous that it promised to combine with theenforced laziness of my life under hatches to make me fat; so that I amof opinion had we waited for the ice to release us, I should have becomeso corpulent as to prove a burden to myself.
I mention this here that you may find an excuse in it for the only actof folly in the way of drinking that I can lay to my account whilst Iwas in this pirate; for I must tell you that, on returning to thefurnace, we, to refresh us after our labour, made a bowl of punch, ofwhich I drank so plentifully that I began to feel myself very merry. Iforgot all about the matches and my resolution to test them that night.The Frenchman, enjoying my condition, continued to pledge me till hislittle eyes danced in his head. Luckily for me, being at bottom of avery jolly disposition, drink never served me worse than to developthat quality in me. No man could ever say that I was quarrelsome in mycups. My progress was marked by stupid smiles, terminating in unmeaninglaughter. The Frenchman sang a ballad about love and Picardy, and thelike, and I gave him "Hearts of Oak," the sentiments of which song kepthim shrugging his shoulders and drunkenly looking contempt.
We continued singing alternately for some time, until he fell to settingup his throat when I was at work, and this confused and stopped me. Hethen favoured me with what he called the Pirate's Dance, a very wild,grotesque movement, with no elegance whatever to be hurt by his being inliquor; and I think I see him now, whipping off his coat,
and sprawlingand flapping about in high boots and a red waistcoat, flourishing hisarms, snapping his fingers, and now and again bursting into a stave tokeep step to. When he was done, I took the floor with the hornpipe,whistling the air, and double-shuffling, toe-and-heeling, and quiveringfrom one leg to another very briskly. He lay back against the bulkheadgrasping a can half full of punch, roaring loudly at my antics; and whenI sank down, breathless, would have had me go on, hiccuping that thoughhe had known scores of English sailors, he had never seen that dancebetter performed.
By this time I was extremely excited and extraordinarily merry, andlosing hold of my judgment, began to indulge in sundry pleasantriesconcerning his nation and countrymen, asking with many explosions oflaughter, how it was that they continued at the trouble of buildingships for us to use against them, and if he did not think the "flower delouse" a neater symbol for people who put snuff into their soup andrestricted their ablutions to their faces than the tricolour, being toomuddled to consider that he was ignorant of that flag; and in short Iwas so offensive, in spite of my ridiculous merriment, that his savagenature broke out. He assailed the English with every injurious term hisdrunken condition suffered him to recollect; and starting up with hislittle eyes wildly rolling, he clapped his hand to his side, as iffeeling for a sword, and calling me by a very ugly French word, bade mecome on, and he would show me the difference between a Frenchman and abeast of an Englishman.
I laughed at him with all my might, which so enraged him that, swayingto right and left, he advanced as if to fall upon me. I started to myfeet and tumbled over the bench I had jumped from, and lay sprawling;and the bench oversetting close to him, he kicked against it and felltoo, fetching the deck a very hard blow. He groaned heavily and mutteredthat he was killed. I tried to rise, but my legs gave way, and then thefumes of the punch overpowered me, for I recollect no more.
When I awoke it was pitch dark. My hands, legs, and feet seemed formedof ice, my head of burning brass. I thought I was in my cot, and feltwith my hands till I touched Tassard's cold bald head, which soterrified me that I uttered a loud cry and sprang erect. Thenrecollection returned, and I heartily cursed myself for my folly andwickedness. Good God! thought I, that I should be so mad as to drown mysenses when never was any wretch in such need of all his reason as I!
The boatswain's tinder-box was in my pocket; I groped, found a candle,and lighted it. It was twenty minutes after three in the morning.Tassard lay on his back, snoring hideously, his legs overhanging thecapsized bench. I pulled and hauled at him, but he was too drunk toawake, and that he might not freeze to death I fetched a pile of clothesout of his cabin and covered him up, and put his head on a coat.
My head ached horribly, but not worse than my heart. When I consideredhow our orgy might have ended in bloodshed and murder, how I hadinsulted God's providence by drinking and laughing and roaring out songsand dancing at a time when I most needed His protection, with Deathstanding close beside me, as I may say, I could have beaten my headagainst the deck in the anguish of my contrition and shame. My passionof sorrow was so extravagant, indeed, that I remember looking at theFrenchman as if he was the devil incarnate, who had put himself in myway to thaw and recover, that he might tempt me on to the loss of mysoul. Fortunately these fancies did not last. I was parched with thirst,but the water was ice, and there was no fire to melt it with; so Ibroke off some chips and sucked them, and held a lump to my forehead. Iwent to my cabin and got into my hammock, but my head was so hot, andached so furiously, and I was so vexed with myself besides, that I couldnot sleep. The schooner was deathly still; there was not apparently thefaintest murmur of air to awaken an echo in her; nothing spoke but thenear and distant cracking of the ice. It was miserable work lying in thecabin sleepless and reproaching myself, and as my burning head robbedthe cold of its formidableness, I resolved to go on deck and take abrisk turn or two.
The night was wonderfully fine; the velvet dusk so crowded with starsthat in parts it resembled great spaces of cloth of silver hovering. Iturned my eyes northwards to the stars low down there and thought ofEngland and the home where I was brought up until the tears gathered,and with them went something of the dreadful burning aching out of myhead. Those distant, silent, shining bodies amazingly intensified thesense of my loneliness and remoteness, and yonder Southern Cross and theluminous dust of the Magellanic clouds seemed not farther off than mynative country. It is not in language to express the savage nakedbeauty, the wild mystery of the white still scene of ice, shining backto the stars with a light that owed nothing to their glory; nor conveyhow the whole was heightened to every sense by the element of fear, putinto the picture by the sounds of the splitting ice, and the softenedregular roaring of the breakers along the coast.
I started with fresh shame and horror when I contrasted this ghastlycalmness of pale ice and the brightness of the holy stars looking downupon it, with our swinish revelry in the cabin, and I thought withloathing of the drunken ribaldry of the pirate and my own tipsy songspiercing the ear of the mighty spirit of this solitude. The exerciseimproved my spirits; I stepped the length of the little raised deckbriskly, my thoughts very busy. On a sudden the ice split on thestarboard hand with a noise louder than the explosion of a twenty-fourpounder. The schooner swayed to a level keel with so sharp a rise that Ilost my balance and staggered. I recovered myself, trembling and greatlyagitated by the noise and the movement coming together, without theleast hint having been given me, and grasping a backstay, waited, notknowing what was to happen next. Unless it be the heave of anearthquake, I can imagine no motion capable of giving one such aswooning, nauseating, terrifying sensation as the rending of ice under afixed ship. In a few moments there were several sharp cracks, all on thestarboard side, like a snapping of musketry, and I felt the schoonervery faintly heave, but this might have been a deception of the senses,for though I set a star against the masthead and watched it, there wasno movement. I looked over the side and observed that the split I hadnoticed on the face of the cliff had by this new rupture been extendedtransversely right across the schooner's starboard bow, the thitherside being several feet higher than on this. It was plain that the bedon which the vessel rested had dropped so as to bring her upright, and Iwas convinced by this circumstance alone, that if I used good judgmentin disposing of the powder the weight of the mass would complete its owndislocation.
I stepped a little way forward to obtain a clearer sight of the splitsabout the schooner, and on putting my head over, I was inexpressiblydismayed and confounded by the apparition of a man with his armsstretched out before him, his face upturned, and his posture that ofstarting back as though terrified at beholding me. I had met withseveral frights whilst I had been on this island, but none worse thanthis, none that so completely paralyzed me as to very nearly deprive meof the power of breathing. I stared at him, and he seemed to stare atme, and I know not which of the two was the more motionless. Thewhiteness made a light of its own, and he was perfectly plain. I blinkedand puffed, conceiving it might be some illusion of the wine I haddrunk, and finding him still there, and acting as though he warded meoff in terror, as if my showing myself unawares had led him to think methe devil--I say finding him perfectly real, I was seized with an agonyof fear, and should have rushed to my cabin had my legs been equal tothe task of transporting me there. _Then_, thought I, idiot that youare, what think you, you fool, is it but the body of Trentanove? Sureenough it was, and putting my head a little farther over the rail, I sawthe figure of the Portuguese Barros lying close under the bends. Nodoubt it was the movement of the ice that had shot the Italian into thelifelike posture, it being incredible he should have fallen so on beingtumbled overboard by the Frenchman. But there he was, resting against alump of ice, looking as living in his frozen posture as ever he hadshowed in the cabin.
The shock did my head good; I went below and got into my cot, and aftertossing for half an hour or so fell asleep. I awoke and went to thecook-house, where I found Tassard preparing the breakfast, and a g
reatfire burning. I hardly knew what reception he would give me, and wastherefore not a little agreeably surprised by his thanking me forcovering him up.
"You have a stronger head than mine," said he. "The punch used you well.You made me laugh, though. You was very diverting."
"Ay, much too diverting to please myself," said I; and I sounded himcautiously to remark what his memory carried of my insults, but foundthat he recollected nothing more than that I danced with vigour, andsang well.
I said nothing about my contrition, my going on deck, and the like,contenting myself with asking if he had heard the explosion in thenight.
"No," cried he, staring and looking eagerly.
"Well, then," said I, "there has happened a mighty crack in the ice, andI do soberly believe that with the blessing of God we shall be able byblasts of powder to free the block on which the schooner rests."
"Good!" cried he; "come, let us hurry with this meal. How is theweather?"
"Quiet, I believe. I have not been on deck since the explosion arousedme early this morning."
Whilst we ate he said, "Suppose we get the schooner afloat, what do youpropose?"
"Why," I answered, "if she prove tight and seaworthy, what but carry herhome?"
"What, you and I alone?"
"No," said I, "certainly not; we must make shift to sail her to thenearest port, and ship a crew."
He looked at me attentively, and said, "What do you mean by home?"
"England," said I.
He shrugged his shoulders and exclaimed in French, "'Tis natural." Thenproceeding in English, "Pray," said he, showing his fangs, "do not youknow that the _Boca del Dragon_ is a pirate? Do you want to be hangedthat you propose to carry her to a port to ship men?"
"I have no fear of that," said I; "after all these years she'll be asclean forgotten as if she had never had existence."
"Look ye here, Mr. Rodney," cried he in a passion, "let's have no moreof this snivelling nonsense about _years_. You may be as mad as youplease on that point, but it shan't hang _me_. It needs more than a fewmonths to make men forget a craft that has carried on such traffic asour hold represents. You'll not find me venturing myself nor theschooner into any of your ports for men. No, no, my friend. I am in nostupor now, you know; and I've slept the punch off also, d'ye see. What,betray our treasure and be hanged for our generosity?"
He made me an ironical bow, grinning with wrath.
"Let's get the schooner afloat first," said I.
"Ay, that's all very well," he cried; "but better stop here than danglein chains. No, my friend; our plan must be a very different one fromyour proposal. I suppose you want your share of the booty?" said he,snapping his fingers.
"I deserve it," said I, smiling, that I might soften his passion.
"And yet you would convey the most noted pirate of the age, with plunderin her to the value of thousands of doubloons, to a port in which weshould doubtless find ships of war, a garrison, magistrates, governors,prisons, and the whole of the machinery it is our business to give ourstern to! _Ma foi_, Mr. Rodney! sure you are out in something more thanyour reckoning of time?"
"What do you propose?" said I.
"Ha!" he exclaimed, whilst his little eyes twinkled with cunning, "nowyou speak sensibly. What do I propose? This, my friend. We must navigatethe schooner to an island and bury the treasure; then head for theshipping highways, and obtain help from any friendly merchantmen we mayfall in with. _Home_ with us means the Tortugas. There we shall find thecompany we need to recover for us what we shall have hidden. We shallcome by our own then. But to sail with this treasure on board--without acrew to defend the vessel--by this hand! the first cruiser that sightedus would make a clean sweep, and then, ho, for the hangman, Mr. Rodney!"
How much I relished this scheme you will imagine; but to reason with himwould have been mere madness. I knitted my brows and seemed to reflect,and then said, "Well, there is a great deal of plain, good sense in whatyou say. I certainly see the wisdom of your advice in recommending thatwe should bury the treasure. Nor must we leave anything on board toconvict the ship of her true character."
His greedy eyes sparkled with self-complacency. He tapped his foreheadand cried, "Trust to this. There is mind behind this surface. Your planfor releasing the schooner is great; mine for preserving the treasure isgreat too. You are the sailor, I the strategist; by combining ourgenius, we shall oppose an invulnerable front to adversity, and must endour days as Princes. Your hand, Paul!"
I laughed and gave him my hand, which he squeezed with many contortionsof face and figure; but though I laughed I don't know that I ever somuch disliked and distrusted and feared the old leering rogue as at thatmoment.
"Come!" cried I, jumping up, "let's get about our work." And with that Ipulled open a bag of matches, and fell to testing them. They burnt well.The fire ate into them as smoothly as if they had been prepared the daybefore. They were all of one thickness. I cut them to equal lengths, andfired them and waited watch in hand; one was burnt out two minutesbefore the other, and each length took about ten minutes to consume.This was good enough to base my calculations upon.