He then produced two young lime-trees he had rooted up that morning and sawed them into poles in a minute. Then he bored two holes in each pole, about four inches from either extremity, and fitted his linchpins; then he drew out his linchpins, passed each pole first through one disk, and then through another, and fastened his linchpins. Then he ran to the boat, and came back with the stern and midship thwarts. He drilled with his center-bit three rows of holes in these, two inches from the edge.
And now Helen's work came in; her grass rope bound the thwarts tight to the horizontal poles, leaving the disks room to play easily between the thwarts and the linchpins; but there was an open space thirteen inches broad between the thwarts; this space Hazel herring-boned over with some of Helen's rope drawn as tight as possible. The cart was now made. Time occupied in its production, three hours and forty minutes.
The coachmaker was very hot, and Helen asked him timidly whether he had not better rest and eat. "No time for that," said he. "The day is not half long enough for what I have to do." He drank copiously from the stream; put the carpenter's basket into the cart, got the tow-rope from the boat and fastened it to the cart in this shape: A, putting himself in the center. So now the coachmaker was the horse, and off they went, rattling and creaking, to the jungle.
Helen turned her stool and watched this pageant enter the jungle. She plaited on, but not so merrily. Hazel's companionship and bustling way somehow kept her spirits up.
But, whenever she was left alone, she gazed on the blank ocean, and her heart died within her. At last she strolled pensively toward the jungle, plaiting busily as she went, and hanging the rope round her neck as fast as she made it.
At the edge of the jungle she found Hazel in a difficulty. He had cut down a wagon load of prickly trees, and wanted to get all this mass of _noli me tangere_ on to that wretched little cart, but had not rope enough to keep it together. She gave him plenty of new line, and partly by fastening a small rope to the big rope and so making the big rope a receptacle, partly by artful tying, they dragged home an incredible load.
To be sure some of it draggled half along the ground, and came after like a peacock's tail.
He made six trips, and then the sun was low; so he began to build. He raised a rampart of these prickly trees, a rampart three feet wide and eight feet high; but it only went round two sides and a half of the bower. So then he said he had failed again; and lay down worn out by fatigue.
Helen Rolleston, though dejected herself, could not help pitying him for his exhaustion in her service, and for his bleeding hands. She undertook the cooking, and urged him kindly to eat of every dish; and, when he rose to go, she thanked him with as much feeling as modesty for the great pains he had taken to lessen those fears of hers which she saw he did not share.
These kind words more than repaid him. He went to his little den in a glow of spirits; and the next morning went off in a violent hurry, and, for once, seemed glad to get away from her.
"Poor Mr. Hazel," said she softly, and watched him out of sight. Then she got her plait, and went to the high point where he had barked a tree, and looked far and wide for a sail. The air was wonderfully clear; the whole ocean seemed in sight; but all was blank.
A great awe fell upon her, and sickness of heart; and then first she began to fear she was out of the known world, and might die on that island; or never be found by the present generation. And this sickening fear lurked in her from that hour, and led to consequences that will be related shortly.
She did not return for a long while, and, when she did, she found Hazel had completed her fortifications. He invited her to explore the western part of the island, but she declined.
"Thank you," said she; "not to-day; there is something to be done at home. I have been comparing my abode with yours, and the contrast makes me uncomfortable, if it doesn't you. Oblige me by building yourself a house."
"What, in an afternoon?"
"Why not? you made a cart in a forenoon. How can I tell your limits? you are quite out of my poor little depth. Well, at all events, you must roof the boat, or something. Come, be good for once, and think a little of yourself. There, I'll sit by and--what shall I do while you are working to oblige me?"
"Make a fishing-net of cocoanut fiber, four feet deep. Here's plenty of material all prepared."
"Why, Mr. Hazel, you must work in your sleep."
"No; but of course I am not idle when I am alone; and luckily I have made a spade out of hard wood at odd hours, or all the afternoon would go in making that."
"A spade! You are going to dig a hole in the ground and call it a house.
That will not do for me."
"You will see," said Hazel.
The boat lay in a little triangular creek; the surrounding earth was alluvial clay; a sort of black cheesy mould, stiff, but kindly to work with the spade. Hazel cut and chiseled it out at a grand rate, and, throwing it to the sides, raised by degrees two mud banks, one on each side the boat; and at last he dug so deep that he was enabled to draw the boat another yard inland.
As Helen sat by netting and forcing a smile now and then, though sad at heart, he was on his mettle, and the mud walls he raised in four hours were really wonderful. He squared their inner sides with the spade. When he had done, the boat lay in a hollow, the walls of which, half natural, half artificial, were five feet above her gunwale, and, of course, eight feet above her bottom, in which Hazel used to lie at night. He then made another little wall at the boat's stern, and laid palm-branches over all, and a few huge banana-leaves from the jungle; got a dozen large stones out of the river, tied four yards'-lengths of Helen's grass-rope from stone to stone, and so, passing the ropes over the roof, confined it, otherwise a sudden gust of wind might lift it.
"There," said he; "am I not as well off as you?--I, a great tough man.
Abominable waste of time, I call it."
