It took a long time, first with our axes to split up the planks, and then to smooth them with our knives. We had next to shape out additional timbers to strengthen the boat, as to which also to fix the planks to. We likewise decked over the fore and aft parts, both to keep out the sea and to prevent our provisions from getting wet. The doctor searched everywhere for some sort of resin which might serve to caulk our boat.
He at last found some which he thought might answer, but as we had only a small iron pot to boil it in, we had to go without our soup or our hot water till the pot was again thoroughly cleaned out. It answered the purpose, however, better than we had expected, and with mosses and dried grass we made up a substance which served instead of oakum. Jack worked as hard as any of us, and was very useful in catching a number of birds, which he salted and dried in the sun.
At length one day, when nearly all our preparations were concluded, the mate said, “And now, Jack Trawl, we must get you to bring your poultry-yard down. We shall not have room for all the fowl, in the boat but I think we can cut down and repair the old hen-coop to hold a good many, and we must kill and salt the rest.”
“What I kill my fowl—my old companions!” said Jack. “What! Cannot we let them live? They’ll soon find food for themselves; they do that pretty well already, and I couldn’t bear to see their necks wrung.”
“I wish we were able to do without them,” said the mate; “but our lives are of more value than those of the fowl. I can enter into your feelings, and we will not ask you to kill any nor to eat them afterwards unless you change your mind. Look you here, Jack; if the savages came to the island they’d kill the fowl fast enough, and perhaps our lives may depend on our having them.”
The doctor then said something to the same effect, and at last Jack was talked over to allow some of his fowl to be killed at once, and dried and salted like the other birds.
We brought the hen-coop down to the beach, and by dint of hard work cut it away so as to hold two dozen fowl closely packed. At night, when the birds had gone to roost, Miles, Coal, Jack, and I went up and took the others while roosting. What a cackling and screeching the poor creatures made on finding themselves hauled off their perches and having their legs tied! The noise they made might have been heard over half the island.
We brought them down and stowed them away in the hen-coop. Jack, accompanied by Jim, had before collected a good supply of seeds, which might serve them as food with the help of the cocoanuts and scraps of fish which we might leave. Mr Griffiths and the doctor had arranged to start the next morning. All hands had agreed to do as they proposed, which was to be up at daylight, and as soon as we had breakfasted launch the boat and go on board.
We lay down, as we hoped, for the last time in our hut. As the island was known to be uninhabited it was no longer thought necessary to keep a watch. All of us slept like tops, recollecting that we should not for many days get another thorough night’s rest.
I was the first to wake, and, calling up Jim, he and I agreed to go to the lake and fill our pot with water to boil for breakfast, knowing that the rest would light the fire as soon as they were aroused ready for it. There was just a single streak in the eastern sky, which showed us that it would soon be daylight, and we knew our way so well through the grove that we didn’t think it worth while stopping till then. We carried the pot on a stick between us, and as we had to pass among the trees, of course we could not do so as fast as if it had been daylight. It took us some little time before we could reach the place where we could dip the pot in and get the water pure. We filled it, and set off again on our way back. We had just reached the grove of cocoanut-trees. I happened to look up at the hill where I had seen Jack the morning after our arrival, when I saw against the sky the forms of well-nigh a dozen savages.