Selecting a site that was high and dry, Armitage first dug a square hole in the ground three feet deep by about fourteen feet in length and breadth. Each side of the excavation he lined with stone walls made of huge boulders piled one on top of another, and decreasing in weight and size until they reached a height all round of nearly nine feet. The interstices he filled with clay to keep out the wind and rain, and additional strength was secured for the walls by banking up earth on all four exterior sides. It was a herculean task, for each of the big, heavy stones had to be dragged a considerable distance, and the only implement he had to dig with was a crude spade which he made out of a piece of planed wood found among the drift along the shore and sharpened and hardened in fire. Light entered through a door and window, and then came the roof. This he made with heavy limbs of trees equally matched, which rested on top of the stone walls, these in turn being crossed with smaller branches, and the whole covered with a thick thatch of tussac-grass and moss held in place by heavy stones. The floor inside was strewn with tussac-grass to keep the feet dry from the damp earth. There was also a fireplace for logs, with a flue and chimney to carry off the smoke, and before it was ready for occupancy he started a fire, thus driving out the damp and making it dry and inhabitable.
He toiled unceasingly and tirelessly, whistling cheerfully as he worked. As Grace watched him, the thought was impressed upon her more strongly than ever that this man was far happier here amid primeval conditions, thrown upon his own resources, than he had been in a so-called civilized state. Evidently he had no keen desire to be rescued. The thought filled her again with dismay. Not that it would really make any material difference. If succor were coming, they would be rescued whether her mysterious companion wished it or not. But that any human being could be reconciled to spending the remainder of his days on a barren islet in a remote part of the ocean, without clothes, tools, books, or even the bare necessaries of life, was intolerable. A man who could entertain such an idea for a moment could have instincts little superior to a savage.
Often she had watched her strange, moody companion as he worked and wondered what his history was. He was no ordinary seaman—that was evident from his speech and manner. He had certainly known better days. He never spoke of himself, and when tactfully she broached the subject, he abruptly changed the conversation. One day she said to him:
"You weren't always a stoker, were you—you weren't born to that kind of life?"
He stopped in his work, and for a moment looked at her in silence, as if seeking time to frame his answer. Then laconically he said:
"My past life is dead. I live only in the present. Just what I seem I am."
Still unconvinced, she returned to the attack.
"Why did you desert from the steamer in New York?"
He clenched his fist as thus brutally she revived the memory of his past suffering, and in a low tone, which came almost like a hiss from between his set teeth, he said:
"Because I could not stand it any longer—I just couldn't. I was desperate."