he's handy enough with the tools; but ever since
he discovered how to make spirits, neither he nor Quintal, as you know,
sir, are fit for anything."

"True," said Young, with a perplexed look; "it never occurred to me
before that strong drink was such a curse. I begin now to understand
why some men that I have known have been so enthusiastic in their outcry
against it. Perhaps it would be right for you and me to refuse to drink
with Quintal and McCoy, seeing that they are evidently killing
themselves with it."

"I don't quite see that, sir," objected Adams. "A glass of grog don't
do me no harm that I knows of, an' it wouldn't do them no good if we was
to stop our allowance."

"It might; who can tell?" said Young. "I've not thought much about the
matter, however, so we won't discuss it. But what would you say if we
were to hide the kettle that McCoy makes it in, and refuse to give it up
till the canoe is finished?"

Again Adams shook his head.

"They'd both go mad with DT," said he, by which letters he referred to
the drunkard's awful disease, _delirium tremens_.

"Well, at all events, we will try to persuade him to go to work, and the
sooner the better," said Young, rising and leaving the cave.

In pursuance of this plan, Young spoke to McCoy in one of his few sober
moments, and got him persuaded to begin the work, and to drink less
while engaged in it.

Under the impulse of this novelty in his occupation, the unhappy man did
make an attempt to curb himself, and succeeded so far that he worked
pretty steadily for several days, and made considerable progress with
the canoe.

The wood was chosen, the tree felled, the trunk cut to the proper length
and split up into very fair planks, which were further smoothed by means
of a stone adze, brought by the natives from Otaheite, and it seemed as
if the job would be quickly finished, when the terrible demon by whom
McCoy had been enslaved suddenly asserted his tyrannical power.
Quintal, who rendered no assistance in canoe-building, had employed
himself in making a "new brew," as he expressed it, and McCoy went up to
his hut in the mountain one evening to taste.

The result, of course, was that he was absolutely incapable of work next
day; and then, giving way to the maddening desire, he and his
comrade-in-debauchery went in, as they said, for a regular spree. It
lasted for more than a week, and when it came to an end, the two men,
with cracked lips, bloodshot