at day; so we lay down again upon the
grass, to talk and rest and sleep. When we came to sleep, however, we
had now another motive, besides watching for a ship, to make us sleep
one only at a time; for we must keep this fire going, which we had got
with so much trouble. This was easily done, since we only had to add,
from time to time, some branches of the Andromeda, and these kept up a
smouldering fire.

"Before either of us went to sleep, we had seen that the first thing now
was to catch more ducks; and this we could either of us do, besides
watching the sea for ships, and the fire that it did not go out.
Accordingly, as soon as the Dean had fallen asleep, I went about this
work, fully resolved upon a plan as to how I should proceed. The
knowledge of seals which I had acquired when in the _Blackbird_ had
perhaps something to do with it.

"I knew, from the thickness of the seal's skin, that lines could be made
out of it very well. You will remember the dead seal that I told you of
the other day, lying down on the beach, where it had been thrown up out
of the sea by the waves. I forgot to mention, in addition, that we found
several other seals, or rather, I should say, parts of them, for most of
them had been eaten up by the foxes, or had gone to pieces by decay. So
I at once went down, as I was going to say, to the seal that I had first
discovered, and, taking out my knife, I made a cut around his neck,
close behind the ears. It was a very large seal, and I found it not an
easy matter to lift him up so that I could get my knife all the way
around him; but I managed to do it notwithstanding, and made not only
one cut but a great many of them,--or rather, I should say, one
continuous cut around and around the body of the dead animal; so you
will easily understand that, in this way, by keeping my knife about an
eighth of an inch from where it had gone before when it passed around,
I obtained at last a long string, or rather one might say a thong, very
strong and very pliable. It must have been at least a hundred feet in
length when I stopped cutting it, and I divided it into three parts.
Having done this, I next went back to where the ducks were thickest,
when, of course, the birds flew off their nests. Then I fixed four
traps, just as the Dean had done, tying to three of them the seal-skin
strings which I had made, and to the fourth I tied the Dean's bit of
twine; then I hid myself among the rocks, and waited for the bi