But beyond the clearing he altered his course to enter the region once blackened by fire. Here he went directly to the hollow tree he had once before examined, and, wriggling inside, through the ample orifice burned out by the flames, he attacked the charred interior with his knife as if his very life depended on his haste.
In the briefest time he had chipped off more than a double handful of crisp, but inferior, charcoal. Retreating no less promptly than he had entered, he gathered this carefully in a giant leaf, and hastily rejoined Elaine.
"Powder!" he said, belatedly explaining. "Everything lying here and ready, and my brain a howling blank!"
To Elaine this was not precisely clear.
"There is gunpowder here on the island?"
"No! The ingredients merely. But any child—— Ah! here's my bit of sulphur! There's a ton of it ready to be gathered. Powder? I can make enough to blow a dozen tigers into ribbons! The wreck is full of niter and, once we have a fire, I can burn all the jungle into charcoal!"
The mystery had not entirely lifted for Elaine, but this she hardly expected.
"How can I help?" she asked him, quietly. "There must be something I can do."
"It's a matter of grinding these materials," he answered, more calmly, depositing sulphur, saltpeter, and charcoal on a rock before them. "It's a simple composition, after all."
Barely less feverishly than before he began a search for suitable stones to employ as mortars and pestles. There were many small bowlders slightly hollowed by the elements, but a number of these had surfaces ready to crumble, and were, therefore, reluctantly discarded. In throwing about some loosely huddled fragments, to liberate a smooth, hard slab of stone that was dished from its edges to its center, Grenville was doubly rewarded by coming upon a large, thick seashell, practically perfect.