lice was
grieved when she saw the little creature come tumbling to the earth, and
declared she could not touch it.

"Bery sorry, Missie Alice," said Nub, when he came down again, putting
on a penitent look. Then turning aside to Dan, he whispered, "She talk
bery differently when she see it nicely roasted by-and-by."

Their success in obtaining food encouraged the voyagers to hope that
they were not doomed to starve on an inhospitable shore, but that with
diligence and a due exertion of their wits they might obtain sufficient
food to support life. The hornbills would, at all events, afford them
an ample meal for that day, and they might reasonably expect to obtain a
further supply of shell-fish from the seashore; though Nub might not
succeed in finding another huge mollusc.

"Shall we remove the ladder?" asked Walter. "It might help to build the
house."

"I tink not," answered Nub, looking up. "Perhaps anoder hornbill come
and make her nest dere, den we catch her and her husband. Bery good
chance of dat, I tink."

As it was important to get their house built without delay, they all
returned laden with as many bamboos as they could carry,--Alice taking
charge of the birds, slung, Chinese fashion, at the end of a bamboo,
which she balanced on her shoulder: the little one being hung behind
her, that her tender heart might not be grieved at seeing it.

"Shall we all assist in putting up the house, Mr Shobbrok, or might it
not be as well to try and get one or two bows made first?" asked Walter.

"We cannot obtain food without them, so, by all means, make two or
three," answered the mate. "You and Nub can work at them, while Dan and
I arrange the plan for the house, and begin to put in the uprights."

Alice assisted the mate in holding the line.

"We must try to get the opposite sides even, and the walls at right
angles with each other, and the corner-posts perpendicular," he
observed. "The sides of our house must depend very much, in the first
instance, on the length of the bamboos; and we can so arrange it that we
may increase it without difficulty."

As it was not time to begin cooking, all hands set to work at the
occupations they had settled to follow. While Walter and Nub were
shaping the bows with their knives, the mate, with his two assistants,
having selected a flat spot a considerable height above the water,
marked out the plan for the house--in front of which they intended to
add a broad verandah