Part 9 (1/2)

”'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 gra.s.s, 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.'