Beginning a Moat
I answered that no doubt that was what they did, and went on to say that if we continued our trench and made it wider and deeper, bringing it close against the walls of our castle, we might add very greatly to the strength of our position if ever the savages came to the island and we had to defend ourselves against them. As to the matter of food, I said that we had in the cavern below the castle as good a storehouse as we could wish for, and I resolved that we would start at once, or at least as soon as we had finished our canoe, to convey a great store of bread-fruit and yams, and salted pork and fish, into the cavern, for which purpose we should have to increase the number of our pots and pans. But since this storehouse would be of little use to us if we were driven out of the castle, Billy consented to help me to dig a moat, though he said it would take us ten years to finish it, if we made it deep enough and wide enough to be of any avail. And, indeed, we were not long in finding out, when we began the work, that it would take us a very great time, if not ten years; for to be of any defensive use the moat must be at least six feet deep and about twice as wide, and we were aghast when, at the end of a day's work with our spades, we saw the exceeding smallness of what we had achieved. I was minded to give up the attempt, though it always vexed me to leave a thing half done, and the partial excavation we had made gave an untidy appearance to the place which displeased me mightily. Moreover, the rains ceasing, and a season of dry weather ensuing, the ground became so much harder that we found our progress even slower than before, so that we did give it up, and went back very cheerfully to our canoe, which we had neglected all this time.
We had hollowed out the log sufficiently for our purpose, though when I looked at the clumsy product of our toil I had a great doubt whether we should be able to sail in it. It had none of the nice curves and shapeliness of a boat, and was the same at the one end as at the other, so that to talk of its prow cutting the water, or cleaving the waves, as fine writers say, would always have been ridiculous. However, we had first to bring it to the water, and that we found a prodigious task. The log, even hollowed out as it was, was much heavier than those we had used in building our hut, and all our pushing and pulling did not avail to move it an inch. We tried the plan of the rollers, whereby we had brought the trees down the hill-side, and by levering up the end of the canoe we managed to slip one of our round poles beneath it, and then others, and when we had several in place, we shoved it and moved it a few feet towards the sea. But the weight of it was so great that the poles were driven into the sand, and so far from being rollers, there they stuck, and we had no means of removing them except by digging them out. This was a pretty check at the outset, and I do not think anything could have been more vexatious. Billy and I stood beside our ungainly vessel, cudgelling our brains for some means of moving it, and Billy said he wished the worst storm that ever was would spring up, so that the waves would come dashing up the beach to the cliffs, and so carry back the canoe into its rightful element.
"What makes water so strong, master?" he said, when he had uttered this prayer for a storm. "The sea could lift this here ugly thing as easy as if it was a cork; but water ain't got no muscles, and it's muscles what does it."
I could only answer that such was the nature of things, and that made me think how feeble even the strongest man is, and how a puff of wind or a wave of the sea can undo in a moment the labour of weeks and months. I might have said something of this to Billy, though he was always impatient of such talk, only he broke in upon my musing: "Well," says he, "I suppose we'll have to go and cut some more poles, and make a regular road of 'em down to the sea, and that'll take us a week or more."
"Time doesn't matter to us," I said.
"Oh, but it does," cried Billy. "Suppose Old Smoker took it into his head to go a-blazing? Suppose there was an earthquake? If we had the canoe afloat, we could lie off a bit until Old Smoker's temper was over."
"But why suppose such things?" I said. "Here have we been two years or more upon this island, and nothing has happened to harm us——"
"Except that ugly monster with the long legs," says Billy, interrupting.
"True; and——" I began. But he interrupted again.