e them with ropes to our
raft. We put on board the raft a vast deal of food that had not been
spoiled by the sea, though the waves had made a breach in the sides of
the wreck. We then put to sea with our train of live stock made fast to
the stern.

We had not gone far when I heard a loud cry of fear from Fritz, "We are
lost! We are lost! See what a great shark is on its way to us!"

Though pale with fright, he took aim with his gun, and shot the fish in
the head. It sank at once, but left a track of blood in the sea, which I
knew to be a sign that we were once more safe. We then got to land, and
made fast our freight to the shore. Ere we had done this our friends
came to give us what help they could to get the beasts out of the
stream, and take them up to the tent. The poor things were well nigh
worn out; but we took good care of them, and put them to rest on some
dry grass that my wife had laid out for them.

That night we did not sup on the ground. My wife had spread a cloth on
the top of a cask, and we each sat on a tub. With the knives and forks
that we had found in the ship we ate a dish of hot ham and eggs, nor did
we fail to test the wine that I had brought with me in a small cask from
the wreck.

Ere bed-time my wife had told me that while I was at the wreck she had
gone in search of some place in which we could build a house.

"And did you find one, my dear?" I said.

"Oh, yes," said she. "We can take you to a great tree that will serve us
well, if we can but get across the stream with our goods."

"But would you have us roost, like fowls, in a tree? How do you think we
could get up to our perch?"

"Was there not a large lime tree in our town in which they built a ball
room, with stairs up the trunk?"

"To be sure there was," said I; "and if we can not build in it, we can
at least make use of its shade, and dwell in a hut on the roots."

Ernest said that he took a string, and found that it was twelve yards
round. This led me to think that my wife's scheme was by no means a bad
one, and that I would have a look at the tree the next day.

When I had heard all they had to tell, we knelt down to pray, and then
sought a good night's rest, which the toils of the day made us much in
need of.

CHAPTER V.

WHEN I rose from my bed the next day, I said to my wife: "Does it not
seem, my dear, as if God had led us to this place, and that we should do
wrong to leave it?"

"What you say may be quite true