the point opposite the ledge, where we could look down into the narrow race between; and we had not been there long when the monster, perfectly inert, was swept around the corner and through the channel, and so carried along past the north side of the island until we lost sight of it, and knew that we should see it no more. For several days after this some of this family of monsters were cast up dead on the shore, together with a great quantity of fish of all kinds, so that we were in no doubt of the efficacy of this remarkable mineral. Indeed, Billy startled me by saying one night, just as I was going to sleep, "I say, master, what a fine thing that stuff would be for doing away with mother-in-laws and Hoggetts and such!" I told him this was a horrible notion, and he owned that it was, and he supposed it would be murder and he would be hanged for it. "But," says he, "suppose Hoggett and that lot come back and fight us, and we kill one or two of 'em--and we can't be sure our arrows won't go straight--would that be murder, eh?" I replied that I thought it was justifiable to kill a man if fighting in self-defence. "Well then," says he, "I don't understand it, not a bit. You kill a man when he's shooting at you, and might kill you if you ain't first, and that ain't murder; but if you kill him with fizzy rock, so that he don't have a chance to kill you, that _is_ murder. What do you make of that, now?" I own I could make nothing of it (though perhaps I might nowadays), but said he had better go to sleep; and he cast that up at me afterwards, saying that whenever he wanted things explained I told him to go to sleep because I couldn't think of what to say, which was not true in general, though it was on that occasion. But to return to my story. We found that we had killed or driven away all the noxious creatures which had made their home in the cave, and since we took care to fumigate the cave at intervals, we were never troubled with them again. The having a direct and safe outlet from our hut to the sea was a great source of satisfaction to us, for now if at any time we should be hard pressed above, we could very easily make our escape and so free ourselves from immediate danger. To this end we brought our canoe round from the nook where we had kept it on the other side of the island, and having taken it into the cave, we made what you may call a dock for it by piling some rocks together above high-water mark, behind which we could lay it up without much fear that it would be discovered if any one should enter the cave from the sea. [Sidenote: Daily Tasks]