Next morning he rose like a giant refreshed, and, after a plunge in the sea and a hearty breakfast, set out with Cuffy for a meditative walk.
Great were the thoughts that swelled the seaman’s broad chest during that walk, and numerous, as well as wild and quaint, were the plans of escape which he conceived and found it necessary to abandon.
“It’s harder work to think it out than I had expected, Cuffy,” he said, sitting down on a cliff that overlooked the sea, and thinking aloud. “If you and I could only swim twenty miles or so at a stretch, I’d risk it; but, as nothin’ short o’ that would be likely to be of sarvice, we must give it up. Then, if I could only cut down trees with my shoe, and saw planks with my jacket, we might make a boat; but I can’t do that, and we haven’t no nails—except our toe-nails, which ain’t the right shape or strong enough; so we must give that up too. It’s true that we might burn a canoe out of a solid tree, but who’s to cut down the solid tree for us, doggie? I’m sure if the waggin’ of a tail could do it you wouldn’t be long about it! Why on earth can’t ’ee keep it still for a bit? Well, then, as we can’t swim or fly, and haven’t a boat or canoe, or the means o’ makin’ em, what’s the next thing to be done?”
Apparently neither man nor dog could return an answer to that question, for they both sat for a very long time in profound silence, staring at the sea.
After some time Jarwin suddenly exclaimed, “I’ll do it!”
Cuffy, startled by the energy with which it was said, jumped up and said, “That’s right!”—or something very like it—with his eyes.
“Yes, Cuffy, I’ll make a raft, and you and I shall get on it, some day, with a fair wind, and make for the island that we think we’ve seen so often on the horizon.”
He alluded here to a faint blue line which, on unusually fine and clear days, he had distinguished on the horizon to the southward, and which, from its always appearing on the same spot, he believed to be land of some sort, although it looked nothing more than a low-lying cloud.
“So that’s settled,” continued Jarwin, getting up and walking smartly back to his hut with the air of a man who has a purpose in view. “We shall make use of the old raft, as far as it’ll go. Luckily the sail is left, as you and I know, Cuff, for it has been our blanket for many a day, and when all’s ready we shall go huntin’, you and I, till we’ve got together a stock of provisions, and then—up anchor and away! We can only be drownded once, you know, and it’s better that than stopping here to die o’ the blues. What think ’ee o’ that, my doggie?”
Whatever the doggie thought of the idea, there can be no question what he thought of the cheery vigorous tones of his master’s voice, for he gambolled wildly round, barked with vociferous delight, and wagged his “spanker boom” to such an extent that Jarwin warned him to have a care lest it should be carried away, an’ go slap overboard.