"At noon we'll fill a jug with water," he said, "and you'll find it
will keep surprisingly cool. The clay is slightly porous. The water
oozes through, evaporates on the surface, and thereby chills the
contents. They use nothing else in Egypt, and, I think, in Mexico.
"If it weren't for the tiger," said Elaine, "I could often go to the
spring."
"Right ho!" said Grenville, cheerily, believing he understood a wish
that lay beneath her speech. "That reminds me. I believe I could
manage to deepen a basin I saw in the rock on our lowermost shelf above
the sea, back yonder, and easily fill it by dipping salt water with a
jug on the end of a rope. Any nymph should enjoy such a pool."
"Oh!" said Elaine, delighted by the thought; "do you really think you
could make it?"
"Well--I've thought of it, you see, on an empty stomach. After
breakfast---- There's quite a bit to do, by the way, after breakfast."
With the fruits now presently gathered, he brought a fresh supply of
creepers and leaves of the sisal, for labors soon to begin. And while
Elaine prepared what was left of the meat, and the other things
afforded by their larder, he went to the shelf of rock so completely
protected by its wall, and made up his mind that, with one good tool,
plus a hammer, he could hew out a bath with amazingly little trouble.
"Meant to go fishing this morning!" he confessed, as the sight of the
clear, limpid tide below aroused new desires in his being. "There must
be oysters and many good fish, if I had the time to get them."
Fish-lines and other "diversions" were again postponed when the
breakfast was concluded, while Grenville braided fibers and tied stout
rungs along their length, to form a rude sort of ladder. This he
carried to the spring at length, and hung across the limb of his tree
by lifting its end on a pole.
Once in the tree, he labored diligently, breaking or cutting away a
number of interfering branches, and arranging a makeshift for a seat,
on which to rest as he waited. The bomb would be better prepared in
the afternoon.
On his way, returning to the camp, he gathered a bundle of the special
wood that he used to retain his fire. It was while he was thus
engaged, in an unexplored part of the thicket, that he came upon a
fallen tree, fairly brittle with resin. He snapped off branch after
branch of this, till his load was too heavy to carry. With all he
could take he climbed the trail.
A piece that he tried at the embers of his fire blazed promptly enough,
producing a volume of thick, black smoke, and a flame that burned
slowly down the wood, as he held the lighted end aloft.
"If we happen to need a torch," he said to Elaine, who, as usual, was
watching results, "this will always be stored here, ready." He placed
the fagots in a near-by hollow of the rocks, against possible future
need.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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