the rain, pouring
down in sheets, extinguished the fire which threatened to devour the
upper branches of Will Tree.

CHAPTER XIII.

IN WHICH GODFREY AGAIN SEES A SLIGHT SMOKE OVER ANOTHER PART OF THE
ISLAND.

That was a storm which came just when it was wanted! Godfrey and Tartlet
had not, like Prometheus, to venture into space to bring down the
celestial fire! "It was," said Tartlet, "as if the sky had been obliging
enough to send it down to them on a lightning flash."

With them now remained the task of keeping it!

"No! we must not let it go out!" Godfrey had said.

"Not until the wood fails us to feed it!" had responded Tartlet, whose
satisfaction showed itself in little cries of joy.

"Yes! but who will keep it in?"

"I! I will! I will watch it day and night, if necessary," replied
Tartlet, brandishing a flaming bough.

And he did so till the sun rose.

Dry wood, as we have said, abounded beneath the sequoias. Until the dawn
Godfrey and the professor, after heaping up a considerable stock, did
not spare to feed the fire. By the foot of one of the large trees in a
narrow space between the roots the flames leapt up, crackling clearly
and joyously. Tartlet exhausted his lungs blowing away at it, although
his doing so was perfectly useless. In this performance he assumed the
most characteristic attitudes in following the greyish smoke whose
wreaths were lost in the foliage above.

But it was not that they might admire it that they had so longingly
asked for this indispensable fire, not to warm themselves at it. It was
destined for a much more interesting use. There was to be an end of
their miserable meals of raw mollusks and yamph roots, whose nutritive
elements boiling water and simple cooking in the ashes had never
developed. It was in this way that Godfrey and Tartlet employed it
during the morning.

"We could eat a fowl or two!" exclaimed Tartlet, whose jaws moved in
anticipation. "Not to mention an agouti ham, a leg of mutton, a quarter
of goat, some of the game on the prairie, without counting two or three
freshwater fish and a sea fish or so."

"Not so fast," answered Godfrey, whom the declaration of this modest
bill of fare had put in good humour. "We need not risk indigestion to
satisfy a fast! We must look after our reserves, Tartlet! Take a couple
of fowls--one apiece--and if we want bread, I hope that our camsa roots
can be so prepared as to replace it with advantage!" This cost th