with murderous desires, ran hither and thither
with our weapons, seeking to destroy the vile creatures that had brought
the poor lad to so unholy a death. Yet nowhere could we discover any
brute or creature upon which to ease our vengeance, and so, presently,
the valley becoming impassable by reason of the heat, the flying sparks
and the abundance of the acrid dust, we made back to the body of the boy,
and bore him thence to the shore.

And during all that night no man of us slept, and the burning of the
fungi sent up a mighty pillar of flame out of the valley, as out of the
mouth of a monstrous pit and when the morning came it still burned. Then
when it was daylight, some of us slept, being greatly awearied; but some
kept watch.

And when we waked there was a great wind and rain upon the island.

X

The Light in the Weed

Now the wind was very violent from the sea, and threatened to blow down
our tent, the which, indeed, it achieved at last as we made an end of a
cheerless breakfast. Yet, the bo'sun bade us not trouble to put it up
again; but spread it out with the edges raised upon props made from the
reeds, so that we might catch some of the rainwater; for it was become
imperative that we should renew our supply before putting out again to
sea. And whilst some of us were busied about this, he took the others and
set up a small tent made of the spare canvas, and under this he sheltered
all of our matters like to be harmed by the rain.

In a little, the rain continuing very violent, we had near a breaker-full
of water collected in the canvas, and were about to run it off into one
of the breakers, when the bo'sun cried out to us to hold, and first taste
the water before we mixed it with that which we had already. At that, we
put down our hands and scooped up some of the water to taste, and thus we
discovered it to be brackish and quite undrinkable, at which I was
amazed, until the bo'sun reminded us that the canvas had been saturated
for many days with salt water, so that it would take a great quantity of
fresh before all the salt was washed out. Then he told us to lay it flat
upon the beach, and scour it well on both sides with the sand, which we
did, and afterwards let the rain rinse it well, whereupon the next water
that we caught we found to be near fresh; though not sufficiently so for
our purpose. Yet when we had rinsed it once more, it became clear of the
salt, so that we were able to keep all that