BRIGHT and early the next morning I awoke to what I felt must be a busy day. A plunge in the sea, a good bath in the brook, and a frugal breakfast of cocoanuts consumed but a few minutes of the time, which, being now practically my sole capital, must be expended with due regard to economy. The turtle was lying safe on its back, and as the sun would soon be very hot, my first care was to break off some shrubs and erect a shade for the creature. I should have been glad to pour a few buckets of sea water over it, but buckets were not among my present conveniences.
The first work on hand was of course the lime-burning. I found a great piece of bark, which I loosened from a fallen and partially decayed log, and used as a sort of tray on which to carry the separate heaps of shells to the spot where the burning was to be done. To economize time and labor, I concluded to burn the lime at the spot where I should subsequently want it. I selected for this purpose a flat piece of smooth sand free of stones and just above high tide, where the waves could not in ordinary weather wash into it. With my hands and pieces of bark I scooped out a basin about ten feet square and a foot in depth, throwing the sand up all around in a low bank. In this basin I piled dry wood and the shells in layers until the pile was five or six feet high.
This took me until noon, working hard every minute, with the perspiration streaming from every pore. Then I discovered that my fire was out. But I had no trouble to start another with the burning-glass, as the sun was shining fiercely and so directly overhead that I had to search for my shadow. Presently the great flames were roaring and leaping high in the air and casting out such a heat that I was glad to retire to the brook for a drink and a cocoanut lunch while waiting for the fuel to burn out.
As I rested in the shade, I employed myself in twisting or rudely spinning some cord out of the fibre of the cocoanut husks. I first pounded the husk between two stones until the fibre was reduced to a mass resembling coarse hemp, and then began to draw it out and twist it as one twists a hay band, only into a slenderer thread. As fast as it became twisted, I wound the thread on a short stick about six inches long and a quarter of an inch in diameter. With the cord wound smoothly on this stick, and a half-hitch taken around one end, I could roll the cord and stick between my hand and leg to give the twist necessary for the spinning operation, and at the same time use the other hand to manipulate the entangling fibres. By this simple process it was possible to produce the thread, or cöir, quite rapidly.
In about an hour and a half my great fire was burned to the ground, and as a result there lay in the shallow excavation a mingled mass of embers, ashes, lime, fragments of partly burned shells, wood, and charcoal. Of course the ground beneath was very hot, and I could not work among the embers and hot fragments. The tide was now beginning to come in, and I dug a trench from the pit to the sea, through which the water flowed till it quenched the fire and slaked the lime, and partly sinking in the porous sand, left: a muddy compound of lime, ashes, and sand, all over the bottom of the pit. I filled and plastered up the trench except a narrow gateway, cleaned out the sticks and fragments, and sprinkled dry sand over the mud, raking it well in and smoothing the surface as much as possible with the aid of sticks and a great clam-shell. It now remained for me only to let the cement or mortar set and dry, and then, I hoped, it would prove impervious to water.
There were still some hours of daylight, which could not be better employed, I thought, than upon the construction of some better shelter than the upturned chest had afforded. All day I had been turning over in my mind a plan for a hut or shanty that I fancied might be quickly and easily built. There was no telling how long the fair weather, which had now lasted for several days, might continue, and the utter wretchedness of existence if a storm should find me without a shelter was not to be patiently contemplated.
In gathering fuel near the edge of the forest I had noticed a great quantity of dead stalks standing six or seven feet high, straight as an arrow and perhaps an inch and a half in diameter except where they tapered at the top. The plant looked like some species of hibiscus. Any quantity of these stalks was to be had, and they were light yet strong enough for my purpose.
I selected a nice level piece of dry sand near the stream and fifty yards or so from the sea as a site for my proposed house. The shadow from a clump of cocoanut palms fell upon the spot for a part of the day, and near by was a bit of rock where I had sat at noon spinning cöir. Two young palms grew there about eight feet apart, the trunks of which would serve for the main supports of the structure. I hunted about in the forest until I found a reasonably straight stick, that would reach from one of these trees to the other, to serve as a ridgepole, and lashed it firmly to them with some of my cocoanut cord, about eight feet from the ground. Then I brought hibiscus stalks, taking care to cut their butts diagonally. They were easily severed by a single blow. These stalks I set upright in the sand; as firmly as possible, for the four walls of the hut, each wall consisting of two rows, the inner row being planted close together and the outer row parallel to it at a distance of about an inch and a half, the stalks of the outer row being separated from one another three or four inches.
When they were set up, which did not take long as I made no effort to drive them very firmly in the sand, I cut off the tops of the stalks forming the end walls to the shape that the roof was subsequently to take, and reduced the side walls to a common level. In the side next the sea I left an opening for a doorway. The space between the rows of stalks it was my intention to fill with dry grass laid horizontally, and to lay in at intervals stalks of hibiscus, finishing off the top of the walls with a good stout stalk of the same, laid in all around and lashed to both rows with cord. This, I thought, would make a reasonably stout and weatherproof wall, and so it subsequently turned out. But as night came on at this stage of the work, I could not complete even the walls of my hut before dark, and was fain to content myself with my bed under the chest.
I was awakened from a sound sleep by something crawling over me. Forgetful of where I was, I sprang up erect, and my head, coming violently in contact with the chest, overturned it, while I fell back half stunned with the blow. The moon had gone down and the stars were shining brightly, but there was not light enough to see anything distinctly except on the water, where a phosphorescent gleam lighted up the breaking waves with a pale greenish glow which ran in streaks along the surface.