"You will see," replied Hazel. "If you do not change your views within the next three days, then call me a false prophet."
The following day passed, and Helen recovered more strength, but still was too weak to walk; but she employed herself, at Hazel's request, in making a rope of cocoanut fiber, some forty yards long. This he required to fish up the spar to a sufficient height on the great palm-tree, and bind it firmly in its place. While she worked nimbly, he employed himself in gathering a store of such things as they would require during the coming wintry season. She watched him with a smile, but he persevered. So that day passed. The next morning the rope was finished. Helen was not so well, and was about to help herself to the poppy liquor, when Hazel happily stopped her hand in time. He showed her the exact dose necessary, and explained minutely the effects of a larger draught. Then he shouldered the rope, and set out for Palm-tree Point.
He was absent about six hours, of which Helen slept four. And for two, which seemed very long, she ruminated. What was she thinking of that made her smile and weep at the same moment? and she looked so impatiently toward the door.
He entered at last, very fatigued. It was eleven miles to the Point and back. While eating his frugal supper, he gave her a detail of his day's adventures. Strange to say, he had not seen a single seal on the sands. He described how he had tied one end of her rope to the middle of the spar, and, with the other between his teeth, he climbed the great palm. For more than an hour he toiled; he gained its top, passed the rope over one of its branches, and hauled up the spar to about eighty feet above the ground. Then, descending with the other end, he wound the rope spirally round and round the tree, thus binding to its trunk the first twenty feet by which the spar hung from the branch.
She listened very carelessly, he thought, and betrayed little interest in this enterprise which had cost him so much labor and fatigue.
When he had concluded, she was silent awhile, and then, looking up quickly, said, to his great surprise:
"I think I may increase the dose of your medicine there. You are mistaken in its power. I am sure I can take four times what you gave me."
"Indeed you are mistaken," he answered quickly. "I gave you the extreme measure you can take with safety."
"How do you know that? You can only guess at its effects. At any rate, I shall try it."
Hazel hesitated, and then confessed that he had made a little experiment on himself before risking its effects upon her.