instead of gaining a great deal of credit, as we
expected, by the feat we had accomplished, we found that we had caused
our friends no little trouble and anxiety. It was a lesson to me ever
afterwards not to attempt to perform any useless undertaking simply
because it might be difficult or dangerous. Many people have lost their
lives by such folly.

Silva had by this time completely recovered his health, but his spirits
were very uncertain. Sometimes he would sit for hours brooding over his
past life, and the treatment he had received from his companions; then
he would start up and walk about the beach, waving his arms, and calling
down imprecations on their heads. At other times he was very quiet and
sociable, and would talk rationally on any subject under discussion.

The lagoon swarmed with fish; but though very beautiful in appearance,
our difficulty was to catch them. We could manage to make some coarse
lines out of some rope-yarns which had been thrown into the boat with
the canvas; we could cut rods from the younger trees which grew around;
and there were plenty of projecting masses of rock on which we might sit
and angle; but a very important portion of our gear was wanting--we had
no fishing-hooks.

"Has any one a file?" asked Silva. We all examined our knives. I had
one in my knife-handle, but it was broken, and I had neglected to get
the blacksmith to put a new one in its place. We hunted eagerly in our
box of tools. Nothing like a file could we discover.

"What is this?" exclaimed Jerry, pulling out a bag of nails from the
bottom of a cask. "Here is something larger than a nail inside." It
proved to be part of a file.

"There is enough here to file through an iron bar, if properly used,"
said Silva, examining it. "Hand me the nails; I will see what I can
do." Seating himself under the shade of a cocoa-nut tree near the hut,
he began working away most assiduously. With a pair of pincers he
twisted the nail into the shape of a hook, and very soon filed, out a
barb, and some notches in the shank with which to secure the line. In
the course of two or three hours he had produced a dozen capital hooks.
"Now we may go fishing," said he. "We may catch as many fish as we can
want, but we should be the better of a canoe."

"Or a raft, eh, Harry? Should you like to try another cruise on one?"
asked Jerry.

I shuddered at the thought of the danger from which I had been
preserved. However, as w