the rocks, and pushing them along with
the boat-hooks to the direction of the bathing-pond, where they hauled
them over the ridge, and secured them. Your father and mother, with the
carpenter, were on this ledge where we now are, having selected it as a
proper place for building a shelter, and were apparently very busy. The
captain and one of the seamen were carrying up what spars and timber
could be collected to where your father was standing with the carpenter.
All appeared to be active, and working into each other's hands; and I
confess that, as I looked on, I envied them, and wished that I had been
along with them; but I could not bear the idea of obeying any orders
given by your father; and this alone prevented my joining them, and
making my excuses for what I had done and said the previous night. I
therefore swallowed some more bird's eggs raw, and sat down in the sun,
looking at them as they worked.

"I soon perceived that the carpenter had commenced operations. The
frame of this cabin was, with the assistance of your father, before it
was noon, quite complete and put up; and then they all went down to the
bathing-place, where the boat was lying with her bottom beaten out.
They commenced taking her to pieces and saving all the nails; the other
men carried up the portions of the boat as they were ripped off, to
where the frame of the cabin had been raised. I saw your mother go up
with a load in her hand, which I believed to be the nails taken from the
boat. In a couple of hours the boat was in pieces and carried up, and
then your father and most of the men went up to assist the carpenter. I
hardly need tell what they did, as you have the cabin before you. The
roof, you see, is mostly built out of the timbers of the boat; and the
lower part out of heavier wood; and a very good job they made of it.
Before the morning closed in, one of the sides of the cabin was
finished; and I saw them light a fire with the chips that had been cut
off with the axes, and they then dressed the eggs and birds which they
had collected the first day.

"There was one thing which I had quite forgotten when I mutinied and
left my companions, which was, the necessity of water to drink; and I
now perceived that they had taken possession of the spot where the only
water had as yet been found. I was suffering very much from thirst
towards the close of the day, and I set off up the ravine to ascertain
if there was none to be found in