The Three Admirals

by William Henry Giles Kingston

“There’s little chance of our eating them up before they turn bad,” observed Desmond.

“You need not fear that, sir,” said Pat; “we will build a house for them, where they will live as happy as princes till we want to cook them?” His plan was to form an enclosure with a roof over it to protect the turtle from the rays of the sun, and to keep them well supplied with wet sea-weed.

“I wonder I did not at once think about that,” said Tom. “We will do as you propose immediately.”

The axes were soon at work, and the enclosure was formed of sufficient size to contain all their turtle, before they returned to breakfast, dragging with them one of the smaller turtle, which was destined to serve them as food for the day. They had turtle steaks for, breakfast, turtle soup for dinner, and turtle again at night.

“It is a pity we have not some port wine, and cayenne pepper, and some lemons,” cried Billy.

“We have no cause to complain, since we have abundance of salt,” said Tom. “For my part, I think we have every reason to be thankful for the ample supply of food with which we have been provided.”

As day after day went by the hope that the Dragon would return became fainter and fainter. Tom made up his mind that if they were to escape from the island, they must perform the voyage in the boat; but as he examined her again and again he could not help confessing that she was but ill-suited for the undertaking in her present state. Whenever they went out fishing they had to keep constantly baling, so that they ran a great risk of going down. He had no anxiety about provisions, though there would be a difficulty in preserving them sufficiently to stand the constant exposure to the sun and wet. That risk must, however, be run. He charged Pat and Tim to thoroughly salt and smoke the pork and fish. He directed them also to clear out a number of cocoa-nuts to serve as bottles for holding water. Pat had succeeded in catching two hogs in his pit-fall, and when the subject of carrying water was discussed, he offered to sew up the skins, so as to form two big leathern bottles.

“Where will you find the needles and thread to sew them up?” asked Tom.

“The needles! shure, I’d be afther makin’ them from bone, and there would be no difficulty in finding the thread.”

Though Tom allowed all preparations to go on, his mind was not at all easy in regard to the condition of the boat, and Desmond agreed with him that, unless her leaks could be stopped, it would be madness to put to sea.