erd was splicing, and
hammering, and gluing, and bandaging. All the next day he was doing the
same. He got nothing to eat or drink; nobody got anything to eat or
drink. The poor children were kept alive on a single bowlful, which
happened to be in the house, but this was now finished, and they were
crying out from want. Positively, if this drought and famine had been
kept up for a few days more the island would certainly have been
restored to the condition described on the chart--'uninhabited.'

On the morning of the fourth day the pump stood erect, and wind and
water-tight once more. Only one thing was wanting--there was no handle.
The only thing left was to try to catch Tricky, for there was nothing
else on the island which would make a handle. But just then Tricky
required no catching. At that moment he was sitting on the doorstep
contemplating the group round the pump. Everybody being out, he had
seized the opportunity to have a good breakfast--consisting of every
particle of meal in the barrel--and was now enjoying a period of repose
before recommencing hostilities. The shepherd made a rush at him, but,
alas, what he wanted was no longer there. A piece of frayed rope dangled
on its neck, but the pump-handle was gone.

It took two days more to find it. Every inch of the island was patiently
examined. Even the child next the baby had to join in the search. Night
and day they were all at it; and at last it was found by the shepherd's
wife--stuck in a rabbit-hole. All this time no one had leisure to kill
Tricky. But on the seventh day the shepherd rose with murder written on
his brow. The monkey would not shoot, and he would not hang; it remained
to try what drowning would do. So he tied a large stone round the
monkey's neck, and led him forth to the edge of the great sea-cliff.

[Illustration: HE TOOK MONKEY AND STONE AND HEAVED THEM OVER THE CLIFF]

A hundred feet below, the sea lay like a mirror; and the shepherd, as he
looked over for a deep place, saw the great fronds of the sea-weeds and
the jelly-fish and the anemones lying motionless in the crystal waters.
Then he took the monkey and the stone in his great hands, examined the
knots hastily, and, with one sudden swing, heaved them over the cliff.

The shepherd would much rather at this point have retired from the
scene. But he dared not. He could not trust that monkey. An actual
certificate of death was due to himself and to his family. So he peered
over the