"For purposes of classification, yes. Keeping to strict fact, it was lucky for me that you raised the alarm, and gave me a chance to discount the odds of mere numbers. So, you see, you really did me a good turn."
"What can be done now to save our lives? Anything will be better than to await another attack."
"The first thing to do is to try to get some sleep before daylight. How did you know I was not in the Castle?"
"I cannot tell you. I awoke and knew you were not near me. If I wake in the night I can always tell whether or not you are in the next room. So I dressed and came out."
"Ah!" he said, quietly. "Evidently I snore."
This explanation killed romance.
Iris retreated and the sailor, tired out at last, managed to close his weary eyes.
Next morning he hastily constructed a pole of sufficient length and strong enough to bear his weight, by tying two sturdy young trees together with ropes. Iris helped him to raise it against the face of the precipice, and he at once climbed to the ledge.
Here he found his observations of the previous night abundantly verified. The ledge was even wider than he dared to hope, nearly ten feet deep in one part, and it sloped sharply downwards from the outer lip of the rock. By lying flat and carefully testing all points of view, he ascertained that the only possible positions from which even a glimpse of the interior floor could be obtained were the branches of a few tall trees and the extreme right of the opposing precipice, nearly ninety yards distant. There was ample room to store water and provisions, and he quickly saw that even some sort of shelter from the fierce rays of the sun and the often piercing cold of the night might be achieved by judiciously rigging up a tarpaulin.
"This is a genuine bit of good luck," he mused. "Here, provided neither of us is hit, we can hold out for a week or longer, at a pinch. How can it be possible that I should have lived on this island so many days and yet hit upon this nook of safety by mere chance, as it were?"