"After observing this fragment of the wreck attentively for some time, I thought I perceived a man moving among the tangled collection of timbers and ropes and sails, endeavoring to extricate himself. Whatever it might be, it was some distance above the sea,—so high, indeed, that the waves no longer washed it fairly,—only the spray.

"It soon became clear to me that my suspicions that this was a man were correct; and being more convinced that one of my shipmates at least was yet alive, I rushed forward to rescue him if possible, without once stopping to give a thought to the risks I would encounter. It was clear that he could not liberate himself.

"You will remember that I was now standing on a fragment of ice which had been broken off from the solid ice-field by the waves. It was one of a number of similar fragments, all lying more or less close together, and between me and the place where I had been standing when the waves began to subside, and the ice ceased to break up. Before me the ice was in the same broken condition as behind me, only, being nearer the open water, the pieces were rolling more, so that there was much greater danger in springing from piece to piece. Without, however, pausing to reflect upon this circumstance, I rushed forward as fast as I could go, jumping with ease over every obstacle in my way, until I was on the piece of ice that held up the end of the tangled wreck. I had evidently arrived in the very nick of time, for the wreck was, instead of coming farther up, now beginning to sink back into the sea.



"What I had taken for a man proved to be one, or, as I soon found out, a boy,—the cabin-boy of the ship, a light, pale-faced lad, and only fourteen years old. The boy was evidently fast in some way among the rigging, and had been trying to free himself. As I came closer, I observed that he was entirely quiet, and had sunk out of view. Quick as thought I mounted up into the wreck, and then I saw the boy with a rope tangled round his leg, and lying quite insensible. Underneath him another man was lying, much mutilated, and evidently quite dead. As I was mounting up, a wave washed in under the wreck, but I escaped with only a little spray flying over me, which, however, did not wet me much. It was but the work of a moment to whip out my knife, which I carried in a belt, like every other sailor, and cut the rope which bound the boy down, and which he had tried in vain to loosen. After this I had no further difficulty, and, seizing the boy around the waist with one arm (he was very light even for his years), I clambered out of the wreck to the ice without getting much more water upon me, and, hurrying off, did not stop until I had jumped with my burden across several cracks, and ran across several pieces of ice, reaching a place of present safety on the unbroken or fast ice. Here I laid down my insensible burden, all dripping with the cold water, and in a state of great anxiety I bent over the boy. At first I thought that he was dead, but it was soon clear that this was not the case, for he was breathing, although slowly, yet freely. Out from his wet hair a little blood was oozing, and upon examining the spot I found that there was a bad bruise there, and that the skin was broken, though there was not a serious cut. This was clearly the cause of his present unconsciousness, as his breathing seemed conclusively to show that he had managed to keep his head above water, and had not been brought to his present state by drowning. It occurred to me that the blow had simply stunned him, and that it had come almost at the moment I arrived to rescue him. I could not perceive that the skull was fractured, and I felt convinced that, if the boy could be warmed and allowed to lie at rest, he would after a while come to his senses. To this conclusion I arrived while leaning over the poor fellow, examining his hurt, while he lay on the chilly ice, never once thinking where I was, and all the while calling frantically to him; but I might as well have called to a stone. When I rose up, fully impressed with the necessity of securing for the lad rest and warmth, and fully realized, for the first time, my powerless situation (that I was even apparently unable to save myself, still less the boy), my heart seemed to give way entirely, and I sank down once more beside him. A prayer to Heaven for succor, which I had no thought could ever come to me, rose to my lips, and at that very moment a ray of hope dawned upon me. The great fog was breaking away, the bright sun was scattering the mists, and land was bursting through it near at hand. Light, fleecy clouds were rolling up above the sea, and, as they floated off before a gentle wind, a blaze of sunshine burst through an opening in them and fell upon myself and the boy whose life I had, at least for the present, saved.

"I could now look out over the sea for a considerable distance. Although there was still much confusion, yet the ice was steadily quieting down, and the waves caused by it were subsiding rapidly. But a change not less marked had taken place in the space between where I stood and the open water. The wreck from which I had rescued the boy had settled back into the sea, and the fragments of ice were separating and floating off. Had I delayed a few minutes longer, I should never have reached the fast ice, but should have drifted off upon the dark waters, as the man had done whom I saw standing in the fog that I have told you of before.

"As the fog cleared up more and more, the land which first appeared stood out boldly, and the sea was visible over a range of many miles. It was dotted all over with fragments of ice and numerous icebergs, many of which reached up into the disappearing mists, looking like white mountains in miniature, with clouds drifting across their summits. The land did not appear to be more than a mile distant from me, and it was evident that I stood upon ice which was fast to it. Indeed, when I was first cast upon this ice, I might have known, had I paused to reflect, that land must be very near, as the name 'fast ice' indicates clearly of itself that simple fact.

"With this lighting up of the air, various thoughts came into my mind. First, could I get to the land and save the boy as well as myself; secondly, could I aid anybody else; and thirdly, could I save anything of the wreck out of the sea. These last two reflections were quickly disposed of, for although I could see many fragments of the wreck, none were within reach, and no other person was in sight,—ship and boats and men were all gone down before the crushing avalanche, and nothing was left but myself and a senseless boy.

"I must here pause to tell you that, although we were in the Arctic regions, and on the ice, the weather was not cold, the time being the middle of the summer. Of course the dense fog made the air damp and chilly, but, as I have said, not exactly cold. My shipmates, before the wreck happened, never dressed in anything warmer than the usual woollen clothing, and seldom wore coats. For some reason, I do not exactly remember why, I had, upon going on deck from breakfast that fatal morning, in addition to my ordinary coat, put on a heavy pilot-cloth overcoat, which had been furnished me by the master of the ship,—the price of it to be deducted from my wages. And it was most fortunate that I had put this coat on, for it now served a good purpose in wrapping up the boy.

"Seeing that there was now nothing to be gained by longer delay on the ice, I picked up the boy in my arms and started for the land. It may strike you as somewhat strange that I should have gone about it so calmly, or indeed that I did not fall down in despair, and at once give up the hope of saving myself when there was so little, or rather no, apparent prospect of it before me. But for this there were some very natural reasons. In the first place, the thought of saving the boy's life kept my mind from dwelling too much upon my own misfortunes; and then, the hope of finding the land which had come in sight out of the fog inhabited, stimulated my courage, and inspired exertion.

"Although the boy was not heavy, yet I found that in the distance I had to carry him I grew much fatigued; but the necessity for haste made me strong, and to save the boy's life seemed now much more desirable than to save my own, inasmuch as if the boy died, and I survived him, and could in any way manage to live on, I should be in a worse condition than if dead, as it appeared to me,—being all alone.

"As I approached very near the land, I became much alarmed by discovering that a considerable space of water, partly filled with fragments of ice, intervened between me and the shore; but, after holding to the right for a little distance, I came at length to a spot where the ice was firmly in contact with the land, and, after climbing over some very rough masses which had been squeezed up along the shore, I got at last upon the rocks, and then on a patch of green grass, where I laid down the insensible boy in the blazing sun.

"What was I now to do? The boy was yet in very much the same condition that he was when I set out with him for the shore. Meanwhile more than half an hour must have elapsed, during which time the boy was wrapped in his wet clothes, which, to a man in the full possession of his senses, would have been prostrating enough. It seemed to me that he was sinking under the effects of the blow which he had received, and the wet clothes which were on his body. I had, however, the gratification of knowing that I was on firm land, and away from the cold ice. The grass was warm, and the air, as I have said, was scarcely chilly. Under these improved conditions it was clearly better to expose the boy's body wholly to the air than to allow him to remain in his wet clothes. The first thing, therefore, which I did was to divest myself of my own clothing, in order that I might give my warm underclothing to the boy. This left for myself only my pantaloons and my coat. After buttoning the coat tightly round me, I undressed the boy, and rubbed his body with such parts of the tail of my overcoat as his clothes had not wetted while carrying him, and, this done, I drew on to him my shirt and drawers, and then, pulling up the grass, I heaped that about him, and over this threw my damp overcoat,—the grass preventing it from touching him. All this occupied but a few minutes, for I worked with the energy of despair. I then set to rubbing and pounding his feet and hands which were very cold, to get some circulation back into them.

"I had now done all that it was possible for me to do for the present towards the restoration of my poor companion, who still remained in precisely the same insensible state as before, and I now determined to look about me and ascertain if there were any evidences of human beings living near at hand.

"The scene around me was dreary enough to strike terror into a stouter heart than mine; and, when I had fully viewed it, I had to confess that it did not seem probable that any living thing, not to mention human beings, could possibly be there. The first thought I had was to shout and halloo again and again at the very top of my voice; but no answer reached me except the echo of my own words in a deep and dark gorge close by. This echo startled me and made me afraid, though I never could tell why. My loud calling had failed to produce any impression upon the boy whatever, and I felt sure that he was going to die. Without exactly knowing what I did, or what I was doing it for, I now ran to the right over the green grass, and then over rough stones up to a considerable elevation, and commenced hallooing again, when, much to my astonishment, I heard a great fluttering and loud sounds right below and within thirty feet of me. I sprang back as if some terrible enemy had attacked me; but I recovered myself in an instant, when I observed that the fluttering came from a number of birds which rose from among the rocks. The birds were brown and quite large, and I knew at once that they were eider-ducks, for I had seen them frequently before, while in the ship, and the sailors had told me their name.

"Without having any distinct motive in doing so, I went down to where the birds had risen, when still others rose before me in great numbers. The rapidity of their flight, and the loud noise which they made, startled others still farther away, and thus flock after flock kept on rising from among the rocks, screaming, and flapping their wings in a very loud manner. Several hundreds, perhaps thousands of them, must have thus got upon their wings and commenced sailing overhead.

"You must know that the eider-duck, in order to protect its eggs from the air when it goes off to get for food the little fish that it catches in the sea, plucks from its breast the fine feathers called down, in which it buries its eggs very carefully. In each of the nests I found there was a good handful of this down, and the thought at once occurred to me to gather a quantity of it, and cover the boy with it. I went to work immediately, and collected a great armful of it, and, hastening to where the boy was, I deposited it, and then hurried back for more. In a very short time I had accumulated a great pile, and, spreading a thick layer of it out close beside the boy, I drew him over upon it, and then covered him completely, and spread my overcoat as I had done before.

"The value of putting this discovery to prompt use was soon seen. The boy, from being cold almost as a corpse, began to show some symptoms of returning warmth. His breathing seemed to be more rapid and free, and his eyelids began to move a little, though they did not fully open for some time; but it was then only for an instant, and I was not certain whether he recognized me or not. I called to him loudly by name, I rubbed his forehead, I pounded his hands, but he gave no further recognition; yet he was getting more and more warm, and in this circumstance I rested my hope.

"Having accomplished this much, and feeling pretty sure that the boy would recover in the end, my mind very naturally fell back upon the contemplation of my own unhappy condition. I moved a few steps from the boy, and sat down upon a rock overlooking the sea. There was nothing there to inspire me with courage, when this question came uppermost in my mind: 'Suppose the boy does recover from his present stupor, how are we going to live?' Could anybody indeed be in a more sorry state? Let me enumerate:—

"1st. I had been shipwrecked,—a fortune usually considered bad enough under any circumstances.

"2d. I had lost all of my companions except a feeble boy whom I had rescued from death, and who was now helpless on my hands.

"3d. I was cast away on a desert land, I knew not where, but very far towards the North Pole, as was clear enough from the immense quantities of ice which whitened the sea before me.

"4th. I was chilly, and had no fire nor means of making any. Nor had I sufficient clothing to cover me.

"5th. I was hungry, and had no food nor means of obtaining any.

"6th. I was thirsty, and had nothing to drink, nor could I discover anything.

"7th. I was without house or hut to shelter me.

"8th. I was without weapons to defend myself against the attacks of wild beasts, if any there should be to molest me.

"To counteract these evils I had four things, namely:—

"1st. Life.

"2d. The clothes on my back.

"3d. A jack-knife.

"4th. The mercy of Providence.

"And this was all! What chance was there for me?

"Little enough, one would think. And, in truth, there did not seem to be any at all. When I thought of all this, I buried my face in my hands, and moaned aloud, and the big tears began to gather in my eyes."

* * * * *

"O, wasn't it awful!" exclaimed William.

"I don't see what you could do, Captain Hardy," exclaimed Fred.

"The poor boy," exclaimed Alice,—"I hope he didn't die. Did he, Captain Hardy?"—and the child began to imitate the example set by John Hardy, when he rested on the rock and looked out upon the icy sea and speculated upon the chances of his ever seeing again the home from which he had so foolishly run away.

"Well, I'll tell you about that some other time," answered the Captain. "You may be sure I didn't die, at any rate, whatever may have happened to the boy; but just now I can tell you no more, for look there at that cloud coming up out of the sea, appearing, for all the world, as if it meant to pipe a squall after us, by and by; and now, with your leave, we'll slip home while the play's good. So here goes. Up anchor."

"Ay, ay, sir," answered William, as he jumped forward very unnecessarily to help Main Brace, to whom the order to "up anchor" was given.

"Halloo!" cried the Captain. "Turned sailor already, eh?"

While Main Brace and William were getting in the anchor, the Captain was stowing away the awning, and then, the yacht being free, he spread the sails, and with his helm brought her to the wind; and there being now a lively breeze, the party were not long in crossing over to the Captain's anchoring-ground, where he turned so as to stop her as he had done before, and then cried out, "Stand by to let go the anchor," to which William answered, "Ay, ay, sir!" and when the boat had stopped, the Captain cried out again, "Let go," and William answered, "Ay, ay!" again, and let it go. Then, as soon as the Captain had secured his yacht and stowed away the sails, the whole party hurried ashore, and up the path to the Captain's cottage, for already great drops of rain were beginning to patter on the leaves, and the roaring wind was heard among the forest trees, giving the first warning cry of a coming shower.



CHAPTER VII.

In which the Reader will discover, as the Little People did, how a Life was saved, and a Life was Begun.

The Captain and his little friends had barely reached the cottage when the storm came down in earnest. The tall trees bowed their heads beneath the heavy blasts of wind, which shook them to their very roots, and the music of the rustling and sighing leaves was heard until the sounds were drowned by the fierce, dashing rain.

"Now this is a regular blow-hard, and no mistake," exclaimed the Captain, as the party stood in the doorway watching the bending trees and the clouds that rushed so wildly overhead. "Good thing we picked up our anchor when we did, or just as like as not we should have had to lie there all night."

"Why, we couldn't have stayed there in such a storm, could we, Captain Hardy?" said Fred, inquiringly.

"To be sure we could," replied the Captain, "and snug enough too. Yes, indeed, the little Alice would have ridden out the gale handsomely. Then we might have stowed ourselves away in the cabin as nice as could be, and have been just as dry as we are here."

"And gone without supper," put in William, with a practical eye to the creature comforts.

"Easy there, my lad," answered the Captain. "Do you think you catch an ancient mariner on the water without 'a shot in his locker'?"

"Wouldn't it have been jolly,—eating supper in the cabin," exclaimed William; "and then, Captain Hardy, would you have gone on with the story?"

"To be sure I would," answered the Captain.

"Then I'm sorry we didn't stay there," replied William.

"Good," said the Captain. "But what says little Alice?"

"I'd rather hear the story where we are," was the reply. And as the lightning flashed and the thunder rattled more and more, the little girl crept closer to the old man's side.

"Then I'm glad we came away," replied the captain; "and we'll go right on too, for I see you don't like listening to the storm."

"O, I'm dreadfully afraid!" said Alice.

"Go on, go on! Captain Hardy," exclaimed both the boys together.

"But where was I when we left off to run away, in such a lubberly manner, from the storm?" inquired the Captain. "Let me see," and he put his finger to his nose, looking thoughtful.

"You were just beginning to cry," put in William.

"To be sure I was, that's it; and so would you cry, too, my boy, if you had an empty stomach under your belt, and nothing but a jack-knife in it," answered the Captain.

"That I would," exclaimed William, "I should have cried my eyes out. But, Captain Hardy,—if you'll excuse me,—was the jack-knife in the empty stomach or in the belt?"

"Ah, you little rogue! I'll not mind you any more," said the Captain, laughing; "what would Fred have done?"

"I think I should have broke my heart," said Fred, promptly.

"That's not so easy done as crying," exclaimed the Captain. "But what says little Alice; what would she have done?"

"I don't know," replied Alice, gently; "but I think I should have gone and tried to get the poor boy to speak to me, and then I would have tried to comfort him."

"That's it, my charming little girl; that's just exactly what I did. But it wasn't so easy either, I can tell you; for the boy was still as dull as ever. I tried to rouse him in every way I could think of; but he would not arouse. I spoke to him, I called to him, I shouted to him; but he would not answer me a single word."

"What was his name, Captain Hardy? Won't you tell us his name?" asked Fred.

"Ah! that I should have done before; but I forgot it. His name was Richard Dean. The sailors always called him 'the Dean.' He was a bright, lively boy, and everybody liked him. To see him in such a state made my very heart ache. But he was growing warm under his great load of eider-down, and that I was glad to see; and at last he showed some feeble signs of consciousness. His eyes opened wide, his lips moved. I thought he was saying something, though I could not understand for some time what it was. Then I could make out, after a while, that he was murmuring, 'Mother, mother!' Then he looked at me, wildly like, and then he turned his head away, and then he turned it back and looked at me again. 'Hardy,' said he, in a very low voice, 'is that you?' 'Yes,' I said; 'and I'm glad you know me,'—which you may be very sure I was.

"But the poor fellow's mind soon wandered away from me again; and I could see that it was disturbed by visions of something dreadful. 'There! there!' he cried, 'it's tumbling on me!—the ice! the ice! it's tumbling on me!' and he tried to spring up from where he lay. 'There's nothing there at all, Dean,' said I, as I pressed him down. 'Come, look up; don't you see me?' He was quiet in an instant; and then, looking up into my face, he said, 'Yes, it's Hardy, I know; but what has happened to us,—anything?' Without pausing to give me time to answer, he closed his eyes and went on,—'O, I've had an awful dream! I thought an iceberg was falling on the ship. I saw it coming, and sprang away! As it fell, the ship went down, and I went down with it,—down, down, down; then I came up, clinging to some pieces of the wreck. Another man was with me; we were drifted with the waves to the land. I kept above the water until I saw somebody running towards me. When he had nearly reached me, I drowned. O, it was an awful dream!—Did you come to call me, Hardy?'—and he opened wide his eyes. 'Is it four bells? Did you come to call me?'—'No, no, I haven't come to call you, it isn't four bells yet,' I answered, scarcely knowing what I said; 'sleep on, Dean.'—'I'm glad you didn't come to call me, Hardy. I want to sleep. The dream haunts me. I dreamed that I was fast to something that hurt me, when I tried to get away. It was an awful dream,—awful, awful, awful!'—and his voice died away into the faintest whisper, and then it ceased entirely. 'Sleep, sleep on, poor Dean!' murmured I; and I prayed with all my heart that his reason might not be gone.

"'What could I do?' 'What should I do?' were the questions which soon crossed my mind respecting the Dean. There was, however, one very obvious answer,—'Let him alone'; so I rose up from his side, and saw, as I did so, that he was now sleeping soundly,—a genuine, quiet sleep. He had become quite warm; and, after some minutes' watching, it appeared to me very likely that he would, after a while, wake up all right,—a conclusion which made me very happy; that is, as happy as one so situated could be.

"After leaving the Dean I once more considered my condition. It seemed to me that I had grown many years older in these few hours, and I commenced reasoning with myself. Instead of sitting down on the rock, and beginning to cry, as I had done before, I sat down to reflect. And this is the way I reflected:—

"'1st,' I said, 'while there is life there is hope'; and,

"'2d. So long as the land remains unexplored, I have a right to conclude that it is inhabited'; and,

"'3d. Being inhabited, there is a good chance of our being saved; for even the worst savages cannot refuse two such helpless creatures food and clothing.'

"Having thus reflected, I arrived at these conclusions respecting what I should do; namely,—

"'1st. I will go at once in search of these inhabitants, and when I find them, I will beg them to come and help me with a sick companion.'

"'2d. On my way I will make my dinner off raw eggs, of which there are so many hereabout, for I am so frightfully hungry that I can no longer resist the repulsive food.'

"'3d. I will also hunt on my way for some water, as I am so thirsty that I scarcely know what to do.'

"'4th. For the rest I will trust to Providence.'

"Having thus resolved, I immediately set out, and in a very few minutes I had eaten a whole dozen raw eggs,—and that, too, without any disgust at all. Then, as I walked on a little farther, I discovered that there were a multitude of small streams dashing over the rocks, the water being quite pure and clear,—coming from great snow-banks on the hill-tops, which were melting away before the sun.

"Being thus refreshed with meat and drink, it occurred to me to climb up to an elevation, and see what more I could discover. The ice was very thick and closely packed together all along the shore; but beyond where the wreck had happened the sea was quite open, only a few straggling bits of field-ice mixed up with a great many icebergs,—indeed, the icebergs were too thick to be counted. I thought I saw a boat turned upside down; but it was so far away that I could not make out distinctly what it was. It was clear enough to me that nobody had been saved from the wreck except the Dean and myself.

"As I looked around, it appeared very evident to me that the land on which I stood was an island.

"After hallooing several times, without any other result than to startle a great number of birds, as I had done before, I set out again, briskly jumping from rock to rock, the birds all the while springing up before me and fluttering away in great flocks. There seemed to be no end to them.

"As I went along, I soon found that I was turning rapidly to the left, and that I was not only on an island, but on a very small one at that. I could not have been more than two hours in going all the way around it, although I had to clamber most of the way over very stony places, stopping frequently to shout at the top of my voice, with the hope of being heard by some human beings; but not a soul was there to answer me, nor could I discover the least sign of anybody ever having been there.

"This failure greatly discouraged me, but still I was not so much cast down as you might think. Perhaps it was because I had eaten so many eggs, and was no longer hungry; for, let me tell you, when one's stomach gets empty, the courage has pretty much all gone out of him.

"Besides this, I had made some discoveries which seemed in some way to forebode good, though I could not exactly say why. I found the birds thicker and thicker as I proceeded. Their nests were in some places so close together that I could hardly walk without treading on their eggs. I also saw several foxes, some of which were white and others were dark gray. As I walked on, they scampered away over the stones ahead of me, and then perched themselves on a tall rock near by, apparently very much astonished to see me. They seemed to look upon me as an intruder, and I thought they would ask, 'What business have you coming here?' They had little idea how glad I should have been to be almost anywhere else,—on the farm from which I had run away, for instance,—and leave them in undisputed possession of their miserable island. They seemed to be very sleek and well-contented foxes; for they were gorging themselves with raw eggs, just as I had been doing, and they were evidently the terror of the birds. I saw one who had managed in some way to capture a duck nearly as large as himself, and was bouncing up the hill—to his den, no doubt—with the poor thing's neck in his mouth, and its body across his shoulder.

"Then, too, I discovered, from the east side of the island, where the ice was solid, a great number of seals lying in the sun, as if asleep, on the ice; and when I came around on the west side, where the sea was open, great schools of walruses, with their long tusks and ugly heads, were sporting about in the water as if at play, and an equally large number of the narwhal, with their long horns, were also playing there. Only that they are larger, and have these hideous-looking tusks, walruses are much like seals. The narwhal is a small species of whale, being about twenty feet long, and spotted something like an iron-gray horse. Its great peculiarity is the horn, which grows, like that of a sword-fish, straight out of the nose, and is nearly half as long as the body. Like all the other whales, it must come up to the surface of the water to breathe; and its breathing is done through a hole in the top of the head, like any other whale's. You know the breathing of a whale is called 'spouting,' or 'blowing,'—that is, when he breathes out it is so called, and when he does this he makes the spray fly up into the air.

"This breathing of the largest whales can be seen several miles; that is, I should say, the spray thrown up by their breath. So you see the common expression of the whale-fishers, 'There she blows!' is a very good one; for sometimes, when the whale is very large, the spray looks like a small waterspout in the sea.

"Besides the narwhal, which I have told you about, I saw another kind of whale, even smaller still. This is called the white whale, though it isn't exactly white, but a sort of cream-color. They had no horns, however, like the narwhal; and they skimmed along through the water in great numbers, and very close together, and when they come to the surface they breathe so quickly that the noise they make is like a sharp hiss.



"Considering the numbers of these animals,—the seals and walruses and narwhals and white whales,—I was not surprised, when I went close down to the beach, to find a great quantity of their bones there, evidently of animals that had died in the sea and been washed ashore. Indeed, as I went along a little farther, and had reached nearly to the place where I had left the Dean, I found the whole carcass of a narwhal lying among the rocks, where it had been thrown by the waves, and very near it I discovered also a dead seal. About these there were several foxes, which went scampering away as soon as they saw me. They had evidently come there to get their dinner; for they had torn a great hole in the side of the dead narwhal, and two of them had begun on the seal. I thought if I could get some of the skins of these pretty foxes, they would be nice warm things to wrap the Dean's hands and feet in, so I began flinging stones at them as hard as I could; but the cunning beasts dodged every one of them, and, running away up the hillside, chattered in such a lively manner that it seemed as if they were laughing at me, which provoked me so much that I went on vowing to get the better of them in one way or another.

"All this time, you must remember, I had left the poor Dean by himself, and you may be sure I was very anxious to get back to him; but before I tell you anything more about him, I must stop a minute longer to describe more particularly this island on which I had been cast away. You must understand there were no trees on it at all; and, indeed, there were scarcely any signs of vegetation whatever. On the south side, where we landed after the wreck, the hillside was covered for a short distance with thick grass, and above this green slope there were great tall cliffs like the palisades of the Hudson River,—which you must all see some time; but all the rest of the way around the island I saw scarcely anything but rough rocks, very sharp and hard to walk over. In some places, however, where the streams of melted snow had spread out in the level places, patches of moss had grown, making a sort of marsh. Here I discovered some flowers in full bloom, and among them were the buttercup and dandelion, just like what we find in the meadows here, only not a quarter so large; but my head was too much filled with more serious thoughts at that time to care about flowers.

"You can hardly imagine anything so dreary as this island was. Indeed, nothing could be worse except the prospect of living on it all alone, without any shelter, or fire, or proper clothing, and without any apparent chance of ever escaping from it.

"I found, however, a sort of apology for a tree growing among the moss beds. I have learned since that it is called a 'dwarf willow.' The stem of the tree, if such it might be called, was not larger than my little finger; and its branches, which lay flat on the ground, were in no case more than a foot long.

"Besides these willows, I discovered also, growing about the rocks, a trailing plant, with very small stem, and thick, dry leaves. It had a pretty little purple blossom on it, and was the only thing I saw that looked as if it would burn. I can assure you that I wished hard enough that I had some way of proving whether it would burn or not. However, since I had discovered so many other things on this my first journey around the island, I was not without hope that I should light upon some way of starting a fire. So I named the plant at once 'the fire plant;' but I have since been told by a wise doctor that I met down in Boston, that its right name is 'Andromeda.' It is a sort of heather, like the Scotch heather that you have all heard about, only it is as much smaller than the Scotch heather as the dwarf willow I told you of is smaller than the tall willow-tree that grows out there in front of the door.

"Although I had not, as I have said, discovered any natives living on the island, yet I came back from my journey feeling less disappointed than I would have thought. No doubt my anxiety to see how the Dean was so occupied my mind that I did not dwell as much upon my own unhappy condition as I otherwise would have done. In truth, I think the Dean must have saved me from despair and death; for, if I had not felt obliged to exert myself in his behalf, I must have sunk under the heavy load of my misfortunes.

"When I came back to the Dean, I found that the poor boy was still sleeping soundly,—a sort of dead, heavy sleep. At first, I thought to arouse him; but then, again, since I found he was quite warm, I concluded the best thing was not to disturb him. Some color had come into his face; indeed, there was quite a flush there, and he seemed to be a little feverish. The only thing I now feared was that his reason might have left him; and this thought filled me with a kind of dread of seeing him rouse up, just as every one, when he fears some great calamity, tries to postpone the realization of it as long as possible. So I suffered him to remain sleeping, and satisfied myself with watching his now somewhat heavy breathing for a little while, when, growing chilly (for the sun had by this time gone behind the island, thus leaving us in the shadow of the tall cliffs), I began to move about again. I set to work collecting more of the eider-down, so that, when I should be freed from my anxiety about the Dean, I might roll myself up under this warm covering and get some sleep; for, although my mind was much excited, yet I was growing sleepy, besides being chilly. I also collected a number of eggs, and ate some more of them; and, using several of the shells for cups, I brought some water, setting the cups up carefully in the grass, knowing that when the Dean opened his eyes he must needs be thirsty as well as hungry.

"All this being done, I fell to reflecting again, and, as was most natural, my thoughts first ran upon what I should do to make a fire. I had found—or at least I thought I had found—something that would burn, as I have said before; but what should I do for the first spark? True, with my jack-knife for a steel, and a flint-stone, of which there were plenty, I could strike a spark without any difficulty; but what was there to strike it into, so that it would catch and make a blaze? I knew that in some countries people make a blaze by rubbing two pieces of dry wood together; but this I could not do, as I had not a particle of wood. In other countries, I knew, they have punk, into which they strike a spark, and the spark will not go out until the punk is all burned up, so that they have only to blow it on some inflammable substance until a blaze comes; but where was I to get the punk from? I had also heard that fire had been made with lenses of glass, which, being held up to the sun, concentrate the rays and make a great heat, sufficient to set wood and like combustible things on fire; but I had no lens. Of course, I have no need to tell you that I had no matches, such as we have now-a-days here.

"Thus the night wore on. I say night, but you must bear in mind, as I told you before, that there was really no night at all,—the sun being above the horizon all the time; and the only difference now in the different periods of the day was, that when the sun was in the south it shone upon us, while when it was at the north we were under the shadow of the cliffs. The sun, you must observe, in the Arctic regions, circles around during the summer, only a little way above the horizon, never rising overhead, as it does here, but being always quite low down; and hence it never gives a very strong heat, although the air is sometimes warm enough to be very comfortable.

"I was glad when the shadow of the cliff passed from over me, and the sun was once more in view.

"I now grew quite warm, though my great fatigue did not vanish; but I was so anxious about the Dean that I would not sleep, and kept myself awake by moving about all the time, staying always near the Dean. At length, soon after the sun appeared, the boy began to show some restlessness; and as I approached him, I found that his eyes were wide open. He raised himself a little on one arm, and turned towards me as I came up to him, and looked straight at me, so calmly and intelligently that I saw at once he had come to his senses entirely; and so rejoiced was I, that, without thinking at all about what I was doing, I fell down beside him, and clasped him in my arms, and cried out, 'O Dean, Dean!' over and over a great many times. You cannot imagine how glad I was!

"'Why, Hardy,' said he, in a very feeble voice, 'where are we? What's the matter? What has happened to us?' Seeing that it was useless for me to attempt to evade the question, I told him all the circumstances of the shipwreck, and how I had carried him there, and what I had been doing. I thought at first this would disturb him, but it did not seem to in the least. After I had finished, he simply said: 'I thought it was all a dream. It comes back to me now. I remember a frightful crash, of being in the water on the wreck, of seeing some one approaching me, of being held down first by a drowning man and then by a rope, of trying to free myself, and then I must have swooned, for I remember nothing more. I have now a vague remembrance of some one talking to me about a dream I had, but nothing distinct.'

"'But,' said I, 'Dean, don't talk any more about it just now, it will fatigue you; tell me how you feel.' 'No,' answered he, 'it does not fatigue me, and I want to collect myself. Things are getting clearer to me. My memory returns to me gradually. I see the terrified crew. It was but an instant. I heard the crash. The great body of the ice fell right amidships,—right upon the galley. Poor cook! he must have been killed instantly. Some of the crew jumped overboard; I tried to, but got no farther than the bulwarks, and then was in the water; I don't know how I got there. When I came up there was a man under me, and I was tangled among some rigging, but was lifted up out of the water on some large mass of wreck. The man I told you of tried to get up too; but his feet were caught, and I saw him drowning. I saw another man holding on to the wreck, but a piece of ice struck him, and he must have fallen off immediately.'

"'Dean, Dean!' said I, 'do stop! you are feverish; quiet yourself, and we'll talk of these things by and by';—and the boy fell back quite exhausted. His skin was very hot, and his face flushed. 'O my head, my head!' exclaimed he; 'it pains me dreadfully! Am I hurt?' and he put his hand to the side of his head where he had been struck, and, finding that he was wounded, said: 'I remember it now perfectly. A heavy wave came, and was tossing a piece of timber over me, and I tried to avoid being struck by it. After that I remember nothing. It must have struck me. I'm not much hurt,—am I?'

"'No, Dean,' I answered, 'not much hurt, only a little bruised.'

"'Have you any water, Hardy?' he asked, 'I am so thirsty!'

"It was fortunate that I had brought some in the eggshells, and in a moment I had given him a drink. It did me good to see him smile, as I handed him the water, and ask where I got such odd cups from. 'Thanks, thanks!' said he; 'I'm better now.' Then after a moment's pause he added, 'I want to get up and see where we are. I'm very weak; won't you help me?' But I told him that I would not do it now, for the present he must lie quiet. 'Then raise me up and let me look about.' So I raised him up, and he took first a look at the strange pile of eider-down that was upon him, and then at the ice-covered sea, but he spoke not a word. Then he lay down, and after a short time said calmly: 'I see it all now. Hard,—isn't it? But we must do the best we can. I feel that I'll soon be well, and will not be a trouble to you long. Do you know that until this moment I could hardly get it out of my head that I had been dreaming? We must trust in Heaven, Hardy, and do the best we can.'

"Being now fully satisfied as to the complete recovery of the Dean, I gave myself no further concern about watching him; but at once, after he had, in his quiet way, asked me if I was not very tired, I buried myself up in the heap of eider-down close beside him, and was soon as deeply buried in a sound sleep."

* * * * *

The Captain, evidently thinking that he had gone far enough for one day, now broke off suddenly. The children had listened to the recital more eagerly than on any previous occasion,—so much so, indeed, that they had wholly disregarded the storm; and little Alice was so absorbed in learning the fate of the poor shipwrecked Dean, that her fears about the thunder and lightning had been quite forgotten. When the Captain paused, the storm had passed over, the sun had burst through the scattering clouds, and in the last lingering drops his silver rays were melted into gorgeous hues; for

"A rainbow—thrown brightly Across the dark sky— (Soft curving, proud arching In beauty on high)

"Had circled the even,— A bridal ring, given To wed earth with heaven, As it smiled 'neath the veil of the glittering rain."

The little birds had come out of their hiding-places, and were merrily singing,

"Farewell to the rain, the beautiful rain";

and the party of little folks that had been hidden away in the "Mariner's Rest," following their example, were soon gayly hastening across the fresh fields,—the old man carrying laughing Alice in his arms, to keep her tender feet from the wet grass.



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 they could 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 in abundance. 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 minutes on 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 eaten some 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, but on 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 a place 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 to have 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.



"'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 pious and 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 association with 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 had supposed; 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.'



"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, and the 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, with mingling 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 the moss which 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 had now 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 the Blackbird had 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 where it 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 had made, 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.