towards their predecessors, who always had some portion of the
vessel left to them, and who, after bringing away crowds of objects of
necessity had been able to utilize the timbers of the wreck. Victuals
for a considerable period, clothes, tools, weapons, had always been left
them with which to satisfy the elementary exigencies of existence. But
here there was nothing of all this! In the middle of that dark night the
ship had disappeared in the depths of the sea, without leaving on the
reefs the slightest traces of its wreck! It had not been possible to
save a thing from her--not even a lucifer-match--and to tell the truth,
the want of that match was the most serious of all wants.

I know well, good people comfortably installed in your easy-chairs
before a comfortable hearth at which is blazing brightly a fire of wood
or coals, that you will be apt to say,--

"But nothing was more easy than for them to get a fire! There are a
thousand ways of doing that! Two pebbles! A little dry moss! A little
burnt rag,"--and how do you burn the rag? "The blade of a knife would do
for a steel, or two bits of wood rubbed briskly together in Polynesian
fashion!"

Well, try it!

It was about this that Godfrey was thinking as he walked, and this it
was that occupied his thoughts more than anything else. Perhaps he too,
poking his coke fire and reading his travellers' tales, had thought the
same as you good people! But now he had to put matters to the test, and
he saw with considerable disquietude the want of a fire, that
indispensable element which nothing could replace.

He kept on ahead, then, lost in thought, followed by Tartlet, who by his
shouts and gestures, kept together the flock of sheep, agouties, goats,
and poultry.

Suddenly his look was attracted by the bright colours of a cluster of
small apples which hung from the branches of certain shrubs, growing in
hundreds at the foot of the dunes. He immediately recognized them as
"manzanillas," which serve as food to the Indians in certain parts of
California.

"At last," he exclaimed, "there is something which will be a change from
our eggs and mussels."

"What? Do you eat those things?" said Tartlet with his customary
grimace.

"You shall soon see!" answered Godfrey.

And he set to work to gather the manzanillas, and eat them greedily.

They were only wild apples, but even their acidity did not prevent them
from being agreeable. The professor made little delay in imi