Gingerly and anxiously did Dominick apply it to a tree. To his joy his axe caused the chips to fly in all directions. He soon stopped, however, for fear of breaking it, and set off in triumph to the golden cave.
Meanwhile Otto, launching the raft, went on board the wreck to search for a suitable bit of iron. As he had said, there was plenty on board, but none of the size or shape that he required, and he was about to quit in despair when he observed the flat iron plates, about five inches square and quarter of an inch thick, with a large hole in the centre of each, which formed the sockets that held the davits for suspending the ship’s boats. A crowbar enabled him, after much trouble, to wrench off one of these. A handspike was, after some hours’ labour, converted into a handle with one side cut flat. Laying the plate on this, he marked its exact size, and then cut away the wood until the iron sank its own thickness into it. There were plenty of nails in the wreck; with these he nailed the iron, through its own nail-holes, to the hard handspike, and, still further to secure it, he covered it with a little piece of flat wood, which he bound firmly on with some cordage made by his sister from cocoa-nut fibre. As the iron projected on both sides of the handle, it thus formed a double-edged axe of the most formidable appearance. Of course the edges required grinding down, but this was a mere matter of detail, to be accomplished by prolonged and patient rubbing on a stone!
Otto arrived triumphantly at the golden cave almost at the same moment with his brother, and they both laid their axes at the feet of the queen.
“Thanks, my trusty vassals,” she said; “I knew you would both succeed, and had prepared a royal feast against your return.”
“To which I have brought a royal appetite, your majesty,” said Otto.
“In truth so have I,” added Dominick.
There was a good deal of jesting in all this; nevertheless the trio sat down to supper that night highly pleased with themselves. While eating, they discussed, with much animation, the merits of the axes, and experienced no little difficulty in deciding which was the better tool. At last Pauline settled the matter by declaring that the iron axe, being the strongest, was, perhaps, the best; but as it was not yet sharpened, while Dominick’s was ready for immediate use, the flint axe was in present circumstances better.
“So then, being equal,” said Otto, “and having had a splendid supper, we will retire to rest.”
Thus, in devising means for increasing their comforts, and supplying their daily necessities, the days and weeks flew swiftly by.