ning, Hazel saw a green turtle on the shore,
which was unusual at that time of year. He ran and turned her, with some
difficulty; then brought down his cart, cut off her head with a blow,
and, in due course, dragged her up the slope. She weighed two hundred
pounds. He showed Miss Rolleston the enormous shell, gave her a lecture
on turtles, and especially on the four species known to South Sea
navigators--the trunk turtle, the loggerhead, the green turtle, and the
hawks-bill, from which last, and not from any tortoise, he assured her
came the tortoise-shell of commerce.

"And now," said he, "will you not give up or suspend your reptile theory,
and eat a little green turtle, the king of them all?"

"I think I must, after all that," said she; and rather relished it.

That morning he kept his word, and laid their case before her.

He said: "We are here on an island that has probably been seen and
disregarded by a few whalers, but is not known to navigators nor down on
any chart. There is a wide range of vegetation, proving a delightful
climate on the whole, and one particularly suited to you, whose lungs are
delicate. But then, comparing the beds of the rivers with the banks, a
tremendous fall of rain is indicated. The rainy months (in these
latitudes) are at hand, and if these rains catch us in our present
condition, it will be a calamity. You have walls, but no roof to keep it
out. I tremble when I think of it. This is my main anxiety. My next is
about our sustenance during the rains; we have no stores under cover; no
fuel; no provisions but a few cocoanuts. We use two lucifer matches a
day; and what is to become of us at that rate? In theory, fire can be got
by rubbing two pieces of wood together; Selkirk is said to have so
obtained it from pimento wood on Juan Fernandez; but, in fact, I believe
the art is confined to savages. I never met a civilized man who could do
it, and I have questioned scores of voyagers. As for my weapons, they
consist of a boat-hook and an ax; no gun, no harpoon, no bow, no lance.
My tools are a blunt saw, a blunter ax, a wooden spade, two great augers,
that I believe had a hand in bringing us here, but have not been any use
to us since, a center-bit, two planes, a hammer, a pair of pincers, two
brad-awls, three gimlets, two scrapers, a plumb-lead and line, a large
pair of scissors, and you have a small pair, two gauges, a screw-driver,
five clasp-knives, a few screws and nails of various size