longer and more miserable at each
successive failure.

"Oh dear!" he sighed, "I would not care a button for the cooking of our
victuals,--perhaps they don't need it,--but it's so dismal to eat one's
supper in the dark, and we have had such a capital day, that it's a pity
to finish off in this glum style. Oh, I have it!" he cried, starting up;
"the spy-glass,--the big glass at the end is a burning-glass!"

"You forget that we have no sun," said I.

Peterkin was silent. In his sudden recollection of the telescope he had
quite overlooked the absence of the sun.

"Ah, boys, I've got it now!" exclaimed Jack, rising and cutting a branch
from a neighbouring bush, which be stripped of its leaves. "I recollect
seeing this done once at home. Hand me the bit of whip-cord." With the
cord and branch Jack soon formed a bow. Then he cut a piece, about three
inches long, off the end of a dead branch, which he pointed at the two
ends. Round this he passed the cord of the bow, and placed one end
against his chest, which was protected from its point by a chip of wood;
the other point he placed against the bit of tinder, and then began to
saw vigorously with the bow, just as a blacksmith does with his drill
while boring a hole in a piece of iron. In a few seconds the tinder
began to smoke; in less than a minute it caught fire; and in less than a
quarter of an hour we were drinking our lemonade and eating cocoa nuts
round a fire that would have roasted an entire sheep, while the smoke,
flames, and sparks, flew up among the broad leaves of the overhanging
palm trees, and cast a warm glow upon our leafy bower.

That night the starry sky looked down through the gently rustling trees
upon our slumbers, and the distant roaring of the surf upon the coral
reef was our lullaby.

CHAPTER V.

Morning, and cogitations connected therewith--We luxuriate in the sea,
try our diving powers, and make enchanting excursions among the coral
groves at the bottom of the ocean--The wonders of the deep enlarged upon.

What a joyful thing it is to awaken, on a fresh glorious morning, and
find the rising sun staring into your face with dazzling brilliancy!--to
see the birds twittering in the bushes, and to hear the murmuring of a
rill, or the soft hissing ripples as they fall upon the sea-shore! At
any time and in any place such sights and sounds are most charming, but
more especially are they so when one awakens to them, for the fist time,