“I quite forgot, though, that we had no means of lighting a fire; so, after all, it won’t be of any use,” sighed Terence, after we had all four collected again on our raft.
“Don’t be so sure of that,” said Andrew. “I have seen a fire kindled by means which few people would think of, but I am not quite certain that I can manage it; however, I’ll try. It’s worth the experiment; for if we can light a fire, we may make some soup, which will do us all good.”
Saying this, he climbed some way up the berg, where he knocked off a pure piece of ice from one of its sparkling pinnacles. We all sat round, wondering what he was going to do. With the boarding-pike he carefully chopped the lump, till he had made it into a thick circular cake; then he pared away the edges, and afterwards commenced operations with his knife, scraping away, till he had formed both sides into a perfect convex shape. Lastly, he took it between his mittens, and rubbed it round and round till he turned it out with a fine polish.
“There,” he said, “there is a fine burning-glass for you.”
“A burning-glass!” I answered, laughing. “A piece of ice shaped like a burning-glass; but you will never get anything like fire out of that, I should think!”
“I should think not,” said Terence, but not in the same positive way that I had spoken; for he had, justly, a great respect for everything Andrew did.
“Give me your hand here, then,” said Andrew to me. I took off my mitten and gave it him willingly. He looked at the sun, which was shining brightly, and held the ice between it and my hand. I saw a little bright spot appear on my hand; but I thought nothing of that, till, feeling an acute sensation of burning, I snatched my hand away in a hurry, to the amusement of my companions.
“I thought it would answer,” exclaimed Andrew triumphantly. “I saw the master of a whaler I was once on board make several like this, and play the same trick to his people I played you; and he afterwards explained that any perfectly transparent substance in a convex shape—that is, bulging out like this—will collect the rays of the sun, and form a burning-glass. But now, while the sun is out, and before our burning-glass melts, let us light a fire and boil our soup.”
The chips we had collected very rapidly dried; so we soon had a fire kindled by this unexpected means. The soup refreshed us wonderfully; but we were very sparing of it, by Andrew’s advice; for we could not tell how long we might have to remain without means of obtaining more food.
Thus passed away our first day on the iceberg, without a sail appearing in the horizon to afford us a hope of rescue.