"No! The ingredients merely. But any child---- Ah! here's my bit of sulphur! There's a ton of it ready to be gathered. Powder? I can make enough to blow a dozen tigers into ribbons! The wreck is full of niter and, once we have a fire, I can burn all the jungle into charcoal!" The mystery had not entirely lifted for Elaine, but this she hardly expected. "How can I help?" she asked him, quietly. "There must be something I can do." "It's a matter of grinding these materials," he answered, more calmly, depositing sulphur, saltpeter, and charcoal on a rock before them. "It's a simple composition, after all." Barely less feverishly than before he began a search for suitable stones to employ as mortars and pestles. There were many small bowlders slightly hollowed by the elements, but a number of these had surfaces ready to crumble, and were, therefore, reluctantly discarded. In throwing about some loosely huddled fragments, to liberate a smooth, hard slab of stone that was dished from its edges to its center, Grenville was doubly rewarded by coming upon a large, thick seashell, practically perfect. With this and the basin of harder rock, he returned at once to the shade. He was soon reducing the charcoal, while Elaine no less industriously attacked the lump of sulphur. "We need a little only for a trial," he said, as he presently sifted out his powdered product, and began to grind the niter. "I wish I remembered the proportions." In his haste to obtain results as soon as possible, he finally shook up and ground together a large-sized pinch from each of the three materials, producing thereby a grayish, unpromising mixture, decidedly too rich in both the charcoal and sulphur. This he placed on a rock, a safe distance away, and attacked with his flint and steel. Elaine had ceased her grinding operations, to stand at his side and watch. He struck, perhaps, a dozen times before he produced a shower of sparks--and nothing occurred. He looked at the stuff for a moment, helplessly, discouragement swiftly lodging in his bosom. Half-heartedly he struck the steel again. A single spark flew hotly from the flint. It seemed to curve to the outside edge of the powder. Instantly, however, the mixture was ignited. It did not burn in a quick, fierce flash, but more with a sputtering, imperfect combustion, productive of stifling fumes. Grenville's hand was slightly scorched--but his joy in the triumph was complete. "We're kings!" he cried, sublimely indifferent to genders. "We're monarchs of all we survey!" He leaped up, waving his flint about his head, his face outbeaming the sun. Elaine was vaguely glad of his results. "I'm afraid I don't understand it in the least."