There we were, cooped up all that day, and before night all our food and water were gone, and the men grew very testy, and in a most unreasonable manner turned their vexation on Billy and me, demanding why we had brought them into the hut to starve. To this I found myself quite unable to frame a suitable answer, being perfectly overcome with the sheer ingratitude of the men; but when it was dark I said that Billy and I would go out and get some water and also a few cocoa-nuts. I did not purpose to go out by the door at the front of the hut, but to cut a hole in the slope of the roof facing the lake, that side not being watched at all by the savages. It was no very long business to make a hole of the right size, the seamen's cutlasses aiding our own tools, which they scoffed at a good deal. But when we were on the point of going forth, Clums asked me where I should get the water, and when I said from the lake he begged and prayed me not to do so, because he said it griped them so horribly. However, I told him that boiling it was a means of making it harmless, and then he said go, and "God bless you!" which was an exceeding strange saying on his lips, which were commonly cursing and swearing. Billy and I went out through the hole, and the men handed out pails, and with these we went down to the lake, and filled them, and returned, the savages being no whit the wiser. And the pails being let down, the men kindled a small fire on the earthen floor, so as to boil the water, while we went into the woods to gather some cocoa-nuts. We talked on the way about the strange change which had come over the posture of our affairs, wondering very much what the issue might be. The savages would no doubt contrive to subsist on plants which we had never used for food, and if they went a-prowling they would discover our plantation of yams; but we had already dug up the most of these and stored them in our cellar with the bread fruit, and I could not think there was enough fruit left on the trees to support so large a throng of savages for any considerable period. Still, there was enough to last them until we were all starved, unless we disclosed our secret store below the hut, which I was exceeding loath even to think of.