Palm Tree Island Part 12

"We've got him and both the harpoons," cries Billy, "and the fish too, for he ain't had time to swallow him proper."

We pa.s.sed a couple of lines round the monster's tail and dragged him to the sh.o.r.e, and there Billy immediately set to work to open him, and disgorged the fish of which we had been robbed. However, having no mind to eat what the shark had partly swallowed, I persuaded Billy to throw the fish into the sea, and Billy laughed at me finely afterwards, I a.s.sure you, when I was eating with great relish a shark-steak he had broiled for our supper.

"If you can eat the shark, master, why couldn't you eat the fish?" says he.

I own I could give him no answer except that my gorge rose at the thought of it, and this led me to consider of the strange inconsistencies of men in matters of food, as in other things. My aunt Susan would have been aghast at the idea of eating a snail, but she would eat a chicken which she had herself fed on snails; and when I mentioned this, Billy said that he didn't see any difference between eating a chicken full of snails and the snails themselves.

"Billy," said I presently, "I never thought I should see you eating worms."

"Why, whenever did you see me do that, master?" says he; "I never done it. I'd be sick."

"But we had a chicken for dinner, and you may be sure it had eaten worms," I said.

He began to see what I was driving at, and looked very grave for some minutes, as if endeavouring to probe the comparison. Then a broad grin spread over his face, and he said, "I reckon the chicken eats worms for the same reason as we eat chickens, 'cause they're nice," and I am sure he believed he had solved a very knotty problem.

[Sidenote: A Canoe]

It was partly this adventure with the shark, and partly our natural wish to circ.u.mnavigate the island, that set us on trying to make a boat. We had many times been sorry that we did not think of securing the boat of the _Lovey Susan_ which had been staved in on the beach, and therefore abandoned by the seamen, but which we might perhaps have patched up if we had hauled it away from the sea. Unhappily, neither Billy nor I had the least knowledge how to build a boat, nor if we had would our rude tools have availed us much, so that though the idea had come into our heads more than once, we had never done anything towards putting it in action, partly from this ignorance of ours, and partly because we had been so much occupied with other matters. Now that the notion had come back to us with more force, however, we determined to see what we could do in digging out the trunk of a tree to make a canoe, something like those we had seen from our look-out hill, though not near so large. Since we required it only to hold two, there was no reason to make it large, whereas there were many for making it small, for a large one would have needed a terrible amount of work, and if we could have made one, we might have had great difficulty in bringing it down to the beach and then in launching it. Yet we resolved that, though it should not be large compared with those that held twenty or thirty men, it should be of such a size as to ride the sea with fair stability, for we did not want a c.o.c.kle-sh.e.l.l or any cranky thing.

For this purpose we chose a tree, of what name I know not, though I think it was a kind of pine, which grew on the slope above the sandy beach I have mentioned more than once. We chose it as much for its position as for the nature of its wood, for being on the slope we thought that we could more readily bring it down to the sea than if we felled a tree further from the sh.o.r.e. We felled it as we did the trees for our hut, with the aid of fire, and a notion came into my head by which we made a great improvement on our former rough method. Our difficulty had been to make a fire sufficiently large to burn away the trunk rapidly, and yet not so large as to burn or scorch the tree higher than was necessary. The idea that came into my head was to put a bandage about the trunk, and so keep the fire within bounds, and when we considered of the best material to use for this purpose, we decided that clay would be the most serviceable, because it would not only not burn itself, but it could be easily kept sodden. Having chosen our tree, therefore, we clapped a thick bandage of wet clay round the trunk about three feet from the ground, and lit a fire all round the tree, and let it burn very fiercely for a time, and then we raked it away and chipped off the charred wood with our axes; and having again wetted the clay, we kindled the fire again, so that it would burn away the fresh surface of wood that we had exposed. We continued thus until we had thus burnt and chipped away a deep incision all round the tree, and meanwhile we had debated whether we should make our canoe on the top of the slope (in which case we should let the tree fall on to a little patch of fairly level ground on the west side of it), or whether we should cause the tree to fall down the slope over the cliff on the western side, and so to the beach. Billy declared for the former course, saying that if we let the tree go over the cliff it would a.s.suredly be smashed, and the trunk once split would be useless for our purpose. In answer to this I said that, however vexatious it would be to have to fell another tree, how much more vexatious would it be if any mischance happened to our canoe when we had finished it and were bringing it down to the beach! In the one case we should have lost merely the time and labour of felling the tree; in the other, there would be the additional loss of the longer time and greater labour expended on the canoe. Billy agreed with this reasoning, so towards the finish we built all the fire on the land side of the tree, until with a little hauling and shoving it snapped off and toppled with a mighty crash over the cliff. We ran down to see what had happened to it, and though some of the larger branches had been broken off, the main trunk, so far as we could tell, was not hurt in the least.

We burnt off the top and the remaining branches, both Billy and I tending our separate fires, of which we had many, so that the work was made much lighter than it would have been if every single branch had needs be lopped with a clumsy axe.

Having thus got a log of wood clear of branches, and, as I reckoned, about fifteen feet long, we peeled off the bark, and set to work to hollow out the vessel. It was plain that this would be a work of long time, for the trunk was about three feet thick, and I do not know how many months we might have been about it if we had not brought fire again to the aid of our axes. We found that we could save time by allowing fires to smoulder for long periods in the top of the log, which we wished to hollow out; and by starting these fires at intervals, we found that when we had chipped away the charred wood beneath the first, the wood beneath the second was ready to be chipped away also, and so on all down the log. Billy and I were thus employed the whole livelong day, and many days in succession, in building and removing fires, and chipping away the charred wood, by which means we gradually dug deeper and deeper into the heart of the log, rejoicing as we saw it, by almost insensible degrees, receiving the semblance of a canoe.

The tree had fallen, as I said, over the cliff on to the sandy beach, and we were in some trouble of mind lest a high sea, or peradventure a violent storm, should carry our canoe away before it was finished. It lay a little above high-water mark, it is true; but for our greater security we moored it, when we left work upon it, by means of ropes to some heavy rocks, which we trusted would preserve it from any such untoward event. And it was indeed lucky we did so, for when we had been for some weeks (as I guessed) at the work--not continuously, for we had many other things to attend to--one night a violent storm got up, with great fury of wind and rain, and also some rumbling in the mountain, which made us feel very uneasy; and when we went down in the morning, the storm having ceased, to see what had happened to our canoe, we found that it had been lifted and tossed about by the sea, being indeed half full of water; but mercifully the waves had not dashed it against the rocks at the base of the cliff, or it would a.s.suredly have been shattered, or at least very much damaged.

This was the first really great storm we had had since our big hut was built, and the result of it, especially as it was followed by a period of rainy weather, was to make us leave work on our canoe before it was finished, and turn our hands to another task. Our hut, as I have said before, was built on a little level tract, above and below which the ground sloped, on the one side towards the cliffs, on the other to Brimstone Lake, as we called it, from its medicinal water. The slope above the hut was gradual, indeed, but it was a real slope all the same, and during this period of heavy rain the water swept down in a wide torrent from the heights, flowing past and through the hut, which was flooded, and very uncomfortable. We suffered in this way, Billy and I, more than our fowls, for they had poles to roost on. As for the pigs, we did not trouble about them, and I do think that the more sodden the ground the happier they were. We did our best, in dry intervals, to make our walls watertight, but could not wholly succeed in this, for the doorway faced the upper slope, and we could not by any means make the door fit so closely as to keep out the water. Since the floor of our hut was thus sodden, we could not sleep on it, but had to make our bed on the bench table, and very hard it was.

[Sidenote: Cutting a Trench]

It was a day or two before we thought of any means of curing this very disagreeable state of things, but then, all of a sudden, a notion came to us--whether first to Billy or to me I do not remember--of digging a trench round the hut, with outlets opening into the lake. We set about this at once, finding the earth easy to work, even with our rude spades, because it was so sodden, and after two or three days' work we had made a shallow trench about the upper end of the hut, shaped like a half-circle, so that when the rain-water fell down the slope it would be intercepted by the trench, and so carried into the lake. We observed again, at this time, that though the amount of water that flowed into the lake was very much greater than we had ever known before, yet the surface never rose above the certain level of which I have already spoken, and we were still very much puzzled to know, at least I was, how the surplus water was carried off; Billy saying that it didn't matter to us, and we shouldn't be any better off if we did know. My way of looking at things was different, and I own I felt a great curiosity always to learn the reasons and causes of matters which were not easy to understand. Yet it was, after all, little more than an accident which brought about the discovery of this matter, and of that I doubt not I shall tell in its place.

[1] A rather long-winded allusion to refraction.--H.S.

CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH

OF OUR ENTRENCHMENTS; OF THE LAUNCHING OF OUR CANOE, AND THE DEADLY PERIL THAT ATTENDED OUR FIRST VOYAGE

While we were busy making the trench to keep the rain from our hut, another notion came all of a sudden into my mind, which, in a kind of merry sport, I at once made known to Billy.

"We will make a moat about our castle, Billy," said I.

"What's a moat, and where's our castle?" says he, leaning on his spade, and looking all around.

"Why, every Englishman's house is his castle, as they say," I answered, "and as to a moat, you must know, Billy, that in the olden times----"

"The times of Robin Hood or Robinson Crusoe?" says he; "for if it is I don't believe a word of it."

"This is quite true, I a.s.sure you," I said. "In the olden times, I say, when every great lord lived in his castle, there was a great ditch or trench all round it, to keep enemies away, for in those times lord often used to fight lord."

"Like rats," says Billy. "Go on, master."

"Well, that ditch was called a moat, and it could only be crossed by a drawbridge," I said, "that is, a bridge that was let down over it from the castle gateway; and so, when the bridge was up, and the moat filled with water, no enemy could get into the castle, and the people inside were safe."

"And suppose they were," says Billy, "what's the good unless they'd got enough victuals inside to last 'em ever so long? If I was the lord outside I'd stop there till they either starved or came out and had a good fight."

[Sidenote: Beginning a Moat]

I answered that no doubt that was what they did, and went on to say that if we continued our trench and made it wider and deeper, bringing it close against the walls of our castle, we might add very greatly to the strength of our position if ever the savages came to the island and we had to defend ourselves against them. As to the matter of food, I said that we had in the cavern below the castle as good a storehouse as we could wish for, and I resolved that we would start at once, or at least as soon as we had finished our canoe, to convey a great store of bread-fruit and yams, and salted pork and fish, into the cavern, for which purpose we should have to increase the number of our pots and pans. But since this storehouse would be of little use to us if we were driven out of the castle, Billy consented to help me to dig a moat, though he said it would take us ten years to finish it, if we made it deep enough and wide enough to be of any avail. And, indeed, we were not long in finding out, when we began the work, that it would take us a very great time, if not ten years; for to be of any defensive use the moat must be at least six feet deep and about twice as wide, and we were aghast when, at the end of a day's work with our spades, we saw the exceeding smallness of what we had achieved. I was minded to give up the attempt, though it always vexed me to leave a thing half done, and the partial excavation we had made gave an untidy appearance to the place which displeased me mightily. Moreover, the rains ceasing, and a season of dry weather ensuing, the ground became so much harder that we found our progress even slower than before, so that we did give it up, and went back very cheerfully to our canoe, which we had neglected all this time.

We had hollowed out the log sufficiently for our purpose, though when I looked at the clumsy product of our toil I had a great doubt whether we should be able to sail in it. It had none of the nice curves and shapeliness of a boat, and was the same at the one end as at the other, so that to talk of its prow cutting the water, or cleaving the waves, as fine writers say, would always have been ridiculous. However, we had first to bring it to the water, and that we found a prodigious task. The log, even hollowed out as it was, was much heavier than those we had used in building our hut, and all our pus.h.i.+ng and pulling did not avail to move it an inch. We tried the plan of the rollers, whereby we had brought the trees down the hill-side, and by levering up the end of the canoe we managed to slip one of our round poles beneath it, and then others, and when we had several in place, we shoved it and moved it a few feet towards the sea. But the weight of it was so great that the poles were driven into the sand, and so far from being rollers, there they stuck, and we had no means of removing them except by digging them out. This was a pretty check at the outset, and I do not think anything could have been more vexatious. Billy and I stood beside our ungainly vessel, cudgelling our brains for some means of moving it, and Billy said he wished the worst storm that ever was would spring up, so that the waves would come das.h.i.+ng up the beach to the cliffs, and so carry back the canoe into its rightful element.

"What makes water so strong, master?" he said, when he had uttered this prayer for a storm. "The sea could lift this here ugly thing as easy as if it was a cork; but water ain't got no muscles, and it's muscles what does it."

I could only answer that such was the nature of things, and that made me think how feeble even the strongest man is, and how a puff of wind or a wave of the sea can undo in a moment the labour of weeks and months. I might have said something of this to Billy, though he was always impatient of such talk, only he broke in upon my musing: "Well,"

says he, "I suppose we'll have to go and cut some more poles, and make a regular road of 'em down to the sea, and that'll take us a week or more."

"Time doesn't matter to us," I said.

"Oh, but it does," cried Billy. "Suppose Old Smoker took it into his head to go a-blazing? Suppose there was an earthquake? If we had the canoe afloat, we could lie off a bit until Old Smoker's temper was over."

"But why suppose such things?" I said. "Here have we been two years or more upon this island, and nothing has happened to harm us----"

"Except that ugly monster with the long legs," says Billy, interrupting.

"True; and----" I began. But he interrupted again.

"And the shark," says he, "and the pig what tumbled me over, and the dogs what bit me. It's all very well for you to talk, master. Things ain't fair, that's all I've got to say. You don't get hurt, but I do.

Why, even fleas, now. We had a lot of fleas at home, but d'you think they hurt my mother-in-law? Not a bit of it. They plagued me awful, till I could screech; but my mother-in-law never felt 'em at all, and that wasn't fair, 'cause she was big and I was little--at least, not so big as her."

I said it was true that Billy had suffered more mishaps than I, but perhaps my turn would come some day; meanwhile we had as yet discovered no way of moving the canoe, unless we tried Billy's plan of laying a kind of roadway of poles from the cliff to the sea, and we supposed we should have to do that, arduous as the work would be. We left it for that day, and for the next, too, being loath to begin a task we did not like; and then we saw another way of achieving our purpose, which I wonder we had not thought of before. We had rigged up over the hole in the floor leading to the cavern a sort of windla.s.s, by means of which we lowered provisions into our store-room, and it was when we were letting down a basketful of yams that the idea came into my head.

Could we by any means devise a windla.s.s which would give us a sufficient purchase to haul the canoe to the sea?

"'Course not," said Billy, when I put it to him. I never knew Billy's like for the seeing of difficulties. "Nothing but oaks would be strong enough."

[Sidenote: Launching the Canoe]

But I was by no means satisfied that the plan was impossible, and I went down to the sh.o.r.e at low tide to look about me. I ought to say that the windla.s.s in the house was a very simple machine. We had stuck two young stout saplings into the ground, one on each side of the hole, having shortened their stems so that the fork where the lowest branches were stood about three feet above the earth. Across these forks we laid a short round pole for the drum of the winch, at one end of this we lashed two slighter poles for the handle, and about the drum we wound and unwound the rope by which we lowered things. Now it was quite certain that we could not move our heavy canoe unless we had a contrivance very much stronger than this, and the difficulty was that a windla.s.s for this purpose must be erected on the sand, and below low-water mark, or it would not bring the canoe to the water. There were certainly no trees of any kind growing in the sand, so that it seemed that any contrivance of the kind must be made there by our own hands.

But as I was walking along the beach, endeavouring to see my way through this difficulty, I observed a rock, not above three feet high, which had a deep jagged groove across the top of it, resembling in some degree the fork of a tree. I looked about for a companion rock near at hand, but all that I saw were flatter and much smaller, not one having any groove to match the other. But why should we not rig up, I thought, something that should serve as well? After a great deal of consideration I hit upon a plan, which Billy and I proceeded at next low tide to carry out. We got two stout poles, and drove them into the sand with the pummet, one across the other, so that the tops of them made a big letter V, the point of which was at the same height as the groove in the rock. We next laid a stout pole across from the V to the groove, smearing it at the resting-places very plentifully with fat, so that it would turn easily: this made a drum. Then we plaited a thick and long rope, and wound one end about the drum and knotted the other end to the nose of the canoe through a hole we made with our axes.

Last of all, we fastened a handle to the drum in the same way as we had done with the small windla.s.s in the hut.