"I never did see such a wicked villain," says Billy. "Why, master, you're as white as a sheet!" and, indeed, I was not far from swooning, the horror of that great beast being still upon me. Billy was not near so much affected, not having felt the monster's grip nor seen closely its baleful eyes; and I think Billy was a trifle scornful of the terror I could not conceal, though afterwards he said he didn't wonder at my feeling pretty bad. It was some little time before I was sufficiently recovered to attempt the upward climb; but, with Billy's help, I presently clambered to the top, and threw myself very thankfully on the grass, never heeding Billy's lamentable outcry when he found that two of the eggs he carried had broken in his pocket.
This terrible encounter, and most happy escape, set me on thinking first what a mercy it was I carried my axe, and then how perfectly defenceless we were against any human enemy that might come against us armed. I said to Billy that we must spend the rest of our holiday in making weapons, though when I spoke I had not the least notion of what we could make that would be of any avail. Billy was for making huge clubs, and sticking pieces of flint into their knobby ends, which would beyond doubt have proved very formidable weapons at close quarters; but, as I had told him already, we should be shot down with spears or arrows before we could come within reach of the enemy, and therefore we could do nothing against them unless we made weapons like their own. Whereupon Billy declared for spears, since we had no strings for bows, and we spent a day cutting light poles for the shafts and in searching for sharp flints that might serve as the heads. But we had such a difficulty in fastening the heads on, and the spears were so exceeding rude and clumsy when made, that I despaired of ever making serviceable defensive weapons of them, and being by no means satisfied that it was beyond our capacity to fashion bows and arrows, I seized occasion while Billy was cooking our supper (which was baked bread-fruit and fried eggs, the latter stronger in flavour and not near so pleasant as hens' eggs, having a fishy taste)—I seized occasion, I say, to make a first trial for a bow-string, which Billy had very shrewdly perceived would be the greatest difficulty.
Making Arms
I tried first of all a very thin strand of a creeping plant, but though that was tough enough, it was not at all elastic, so that I gave that up at once. Next I bethought me of the fibres in the husks and leaves of the cocoa-nut, and wondered whether these could be woven into a cord; and if any are surprised that I should so much as mention this, having seen cocoa-nuts, perhaps, only as they appear in our shops, I will explain that the nut itself is enclosed in a tough fibrous husk of about two inches in thickness, while the leaf is covered for two or three feet of its length with a fibrous matting, very fine and strong, which acts as a kind of brace to the stalk and keeps it steadily fixed to the trunk. I had taken note of this fibrous substance, and, indeed, thought I remembered that the native people made thread of it; but when I came to the actual experiment, I found that the thread so made was as tough as you please, and it served us excellent well afterward in many ways, as will presently be seen, but it was quite lacking in that spring without which a bow-string is impossible.
I do not mean to say that I made all these discoveries while Billy was cooking the supper, but only that I began to make my trials then. It was, indeed, several days before we lighted on something that was suited to our purpose, and that by a kind of accident. We had gone up the mountain, as was our daily custom, to make our survey, and coming down again we left our usual path, for no reason that I can remember, and came upon a patch of plants of a kind that we had not observed before. We had become by this time so knowing in the vegetation of our island, though quite ignorant of the names of the plants, that we stopped to examine this new kind, and plucked some of it, which we peeled as we went our way. It seemed to me that the bark of it had a certain stretch in its fibres, and when we got back to our hut we pulled the fibres out and twisted some of them together in the manner of a cord, and fastened the ends of the string thus made to the ends of a short pliable twig, and to our great joy, when I pulled the string and released it suddenly, it shot back with a twang as like that of a true cord as can be imagined. In my delight I cried out that I would be Robin Hood and Billy should be Little John, which he took at first to be an affront on his shortness of stature, he being eight inches or more less than I was at that time; he grew afterwards till there was no more than four inches betwixt us. But on my telling him what stories I could remember of Robin Hood and his bold men in Lincoln green—Friar Tuck and Maid Marion and the rest of the company—Billy, who had never heard of any of these before, was greatly delighted, though he doubted whether they were quite so good marksmen as the stories said, and professed that of them all he would have preferred to be Friar Tuck, who had a nice taste in venison, just as Billy himself had in pork. However, he agreed to be Little John, reminding me very pertinently that we had not yet made our bows and arrows.
I had already made up my mind as to the wood we should use for making the bows. It was that same red wood of which I have spoken once or twice, and which, being flexible as well as hard, seemed to me the fittest for our purpose of all the woods in the island. Accordingly we chose two strong saplings of this tree growing to my own height, or a little more, and having uprooted them, we cut off the branches and twigs, peeled the bark off, and then pared them for three or four inches in the centre, so as we might grip them easily. This done, we shaved the ends as well as we could with our axes until they tapered, and about two inches from each end we burned a notch in which we purposed fitting the strings. Thus with an easy day's work we had two fine bows, not very cunningly shaped, but strong and serviceable—at least, we hoped so.
