They took out two large pieces. Jake Irwin filled the pot with water from the spring, and, having soon made a fire, they set the meat on to boil. The savoury odour of the cooking meat soon met their nostrils and encouraged them to fresh efforts on the other casks. Strangely enough, though the first cask opened was filled with spoilt gunpowder, all the rest of the barrels had good wholesome provisions in them. The second barrel opened was found to contain ships'-biscuit, the third and fourth salt pork; the fifth had beef in it, and in one or two more casks they found further food, sufficient in all to last them for some months without going on short rations. It was not long ere the meat was sufficiently cooked to satisfy them, and they went in to call Evans and acquaint him with the fact that he could now have a good wholesome meal. They aroused him with great difficulty, and he seemed to be weaker than ever. He revived somewhat under the stimulating influence of the hot food, and told them that if only he had had such food a little earlier it would have saved his life. Their meal finished, they got up a few more casks which had meanwhile come ashore, and gathered more wreckage, piling all their material recovered from the sea in a place of safety well above high-water mark. Having at length collected everything in sight on the beach, the next thing they set themselves to do was to find a suitable spot and erect, with the wreckage that they had found, a hut large enough to contain the entire party with comfort. But first, as Roger very rightly observed, it was necessary and prudent to build a fire the smoke of which could be seen out at sea, and which might serve as a guide to Cavendish in his search for the sand-bank should he happen to be looking for it. Their plan was to feed the fire with damp wood and sea-weed during the day, to produce a thick smoke that could be seen at a long distance out at sea, and to put on dry wood at night to make a bright blaze which could also be seen a long way off. This was soon done, and a site was then selected for the projected hut. Among the palm-trees on the summit of the bank were three trees so placed as to form the points of a fairly spacious triangle. Roger selected these, intending to nail or otherwise secure planks to their trunks, making a three-sided enclosure; leaving space, of course, in one of the sides for a door. A roof they believed they could dispense with, as the trees were not very high, and the tufts of leaves at their summits were so thick, and grew so close together, that it seemed very doubtful whether even the furious rain of the tropics would be able to penetrate them. They found a number of nails in the planks and timbers which they had collected, and these served their purpose. Roger, Jake Irwin, and Walter Bevan worked right manfully at the job of erecting the new hut, and in a few hours it was finished. Evans, poor fellow, was far too weak to take a hand in any of