hands repaired there to cut timber for the proposed hut. They
worked away very hard, Harry and the midshipmen labouring as well as the
rest. As soon as several trees were felled, Harry, leaving Bollard and
two of the men to cut more, with the rest of the party carried them up
the hill. They had then to dig the foundation of the hut. While this
was doing, Willy and Peter collected a supply of grass from the
hillside.

So busily were they all employed that evening arrived before they
thought the day was half spent. Dark clouds had been gathering, and the
wind increasing, and they had the prospect of a stormy night. The hut,
however, was roofed in, and they were able to take shelter from the
torrents of rain which now came down. Fuel having been collected, they
lighted a fire in the front of the hut, but the wind blew the flames
about so furiously that there was a risk of the walls, and a still
greater one of the roof, catching fire. No one, therefore, ventured to
go to sleep; indeed, there was not room for all the party to stretch
their legs.

The first hours of the night were passed, as they sat close together to
keep themselves warm, watching the bending flagstaff, and listening to
the howling of the wind and the roar of the surf as it broke on the
rocky shore. Harry did his best to keep the party amused, and got Paul
Lizard, who could sing a good song, to strike up a merry stave; and
Paul, once set going, was generally loath to stop. His full manly voice
trolled forth many a ditty, sounding above the whistling of the storm
and the roar of the waves. Then adventures and stories were told, and
yarn after yarn was spun, most of which were no novelties to the
hearers. The boatswain, who seldom condescended to tell his adventures
except to the other warrant officers, narrated several wonderful ones he
had gone through; and Willy and Peter could not help being surprised,
after encountering so many dangers and hardships, he should be still
living to narrate them. He had been left alone on an iceberg in the
Polar seas, when the boat in which he was chasing a whale and all the
other hands had been lost. He had been stranded on the coast of Africa,
and made captive by the natives; when escaping, he had been nearly torn
to pieces by a lion, only managing to scramble up a tree just as the
monster's claws were within a few inches of his heels. He had got on
board a slaver, which had gone down while being chased by a