That evening saw our hut, as far as the outside was concerned, pretty well finished, and we were able to sleep in it comfortably and warmly. Next morning, when Bill went to fetch our fish for breakfast, he brought back the unpleasant news that several of the pools were dry, and the fish dead and beginning to smell most unpleasantly.
“Well,” said Tom, “we must clear them out, or we shall be killed by the smell. We shall have a regular pestilence. After breakfast we must set about that before anything else.”
We set out accordingly as soon as we could, and found that what Bill had said was only too true, and a most unpleasant day’s work we had throwing the dead fish into the sea; and we found that even in the pools where some water remained it was sinking so rapidly that the fish in them would soon die also.
As we sat round our fire that night, we were speaking of the necessity of going on with this disagreeable work, when Bill said, “Anyway, we might make a pond here of coral rocks, which would keep a good many in.”
“That’s right, Bill,” I answered. “Don’t you think so, Tom?”
“Surely; and we can’t do better than go on with it in the morning.”
Next morning, as soon as it was light, we set about looking for a spot where we could keep our fish, and before long we lighted on a small creek about twenty feet long by ten wide at the entrance, and in which the water was about six feet deep.
To close up the entrance with a pile of coral blocks thrown together loosely was not a difficult matter, and during the whole of the next week we were busy doing this and filling the pond or stew with live fish, salting and smoking others, and finishing our house, to which we contrived a door and windows, closed with frames made of the midribs of the palm leaves, on which were worked a matting of the fronds.
Our beds we made of the husks of dry cocoanuts, which we pounded with stones to loosen the fibre; and from the shells of the nuts we fashioned a number of utensils which we added to our scanty stock.
When this work was all finished, I asked Tom Arbor if he had thought of any means of repairing our boat, and he said “Yes,” and that now we could set about it as soon as we liked.