a great stone that lay
hard by, watched me with mighty interest.

"You are very clever, Martin!" says she.

"'Tis very rough, I doubt."

"I have seen many a worse broom used in England, Martin."

"Why, 'twill serve, mayhap."

"'Tis excellent!" says she, and taking the broom from me away she limps
with it forthwith and I, standing without the cave, presently heard her
sweeping away (despite her bruises) and singing sweet as any mounting
lark. I now set out to bring away such things as I had left behind, as
my iron and the turtle-shell (the which I held of more account than all
the jewels in Adam's treasure) and on my way stopped to cut a stout,
curved branch that I thought might furnish me a powerful bow; and
another that, bladed with iron, should become a formidable spear.
Though why my mind should run to weapons of offence seeing that the
island, so far as I knew, was deserted, and no wild beasts, I know not.
Reaching Deliverance Sands I paused to look about me for such pieces of
driftwood as might serve us, and came on several full of nails and
bolts; some of these timbers being warped with age and others
comparatively new. And looking on these poor remains of so many noble
ships and thinking of the numberless poor souls that had manned them
and gone to their account, I could not but feel some awe for these
storm-rent timbers as I handled them. And presently as I laboured I
spied a piece new-painted, and dragging it forth from sand and seaweed,
knew it for the gunwale of our own boat. This put me in great hopes
that I might come upon some of our stores, but, though I sought
diligently then and for days after, I never found anything but this
poor fragment. Having laid by such timbers as shewed iron of any sort,
I went my way and so at last reached our first shelter. And what
should I espy upon a ledge of rock just above me but a goat; for a
moment the creature blinked at me, chewing busily, then scrambled to
its feet; but in that instant I caught up a heavy stone that chanced
handy and hurled it; the poor beast bleated once, and rolling down the
rock thudded at my feet, where I despatched it with my knife. My next
care was to skin it, which unlovely task I made worse by my bungling,
howbeit it was done at last and I reeking of blood and sweat. None the
less I persevered and, having cleaned the carcass I cut therefrom such
joints as might satisfy our immediate needs, and setting them in my
turtle-shell with