s.

Now that he had got over his fright, Robinson looked carefully about
him. The cave was small, not more than twelve feet across at its
widest, but he noticed at the far end another opening. This was so low
down, however, that he had to creep on his hands and knees to get in,
and without a better light than the burning torch, he could not see
how far it went. So he made up his mind to come again.

Robinson had long before this made a good supply of very fair candles
from the tallow of the goats he had killed, and next day he returned
to the cave with six of these, and his tinder-box to light them with.
In those days there were no matches, and men used to strike a light
with a flint and steel, and tinder, which was a stuff that caught fire
very easily from a spark.

Entering the cave, Robinson found, on lighting a candle, that the goat
was now dead. Moving it aside, to be buried later, he went down on his
hands and knees, and crawled about ten yards through the small
passage, till at last he found himself in a great chamber, the roof of
which was quite twenty feet high. On every side the walls reflected
the light of his candle, and glittered like gold, or almost like
diamonds, he thought. The floor was perfectly dry and level, even on
the walls there was no damp, and Robinson was delighted with his
discovery. Its only drawback was the low entrance; but, as he decided
to use the cave chiefly as a place to retreat to if he should ever be
attacked, that was in reality an advantage, because one man, if he had
firearms could easily defend it against hundreds.

At once Robinson set about storing in it all his powder, except three
or four pounds, all his lead for making bullets, and his spare guns
and muskets. When moving the powder, he thought he might as well open
a barrel which had drifted ashore out of the wreck 'after the
earthquake, and though water had got into it, there was not a great
deal of damage done, for the powder had crusted on the outside only,
and in the inside there was about sixty pounds weight, quite dry and
good. This, with what remained of the first lot, gave him a very large
supply, enough to last all his life.

For more than two-and-twenty years Robinson had now been in the
island, and he had grown quite used to it, and to his manner of
living. If he could only have been sure that no savages would come
near him, he felt almost that he would be content to spend all the
rest of his days there, to