he attitude of a vestal,
was watching the sacred fire confided to his keeping.

CHAPTER XIV.

WHEREIN GODFREY FINDS SOME WRECKAGE, TO WHICH HE AND HIS COMPANION GIVE
A HEARTY WELCOME.

To put up with what you cannot avoid is a philosophical principle, that
may not perhaps lead you to the accomplishment of great deeds, but is
assuredly eminently practical. On this principle Godfrey had resolved to
act for the future. If he had to live in this island, the wisest thing
for him to do was to live there as comfortably as possible until an
opportunity offered for him to leave it.

And so, without delay, he set to work to get the interior of Will Tree
into some order. Cleanliness was of the first importance. The beds of
dried grass were frequently renewed. The plates and dishes were only
scallop shells, it is true, but no American kitchen could show cleaner
ones. It should be said to his praise that Professor Tartlet was a
capital washer. With the help of his knife Godfrey, by flattening out a
large piece of bark, and sticking four uprights into the ground, had
contrived a table in the middle of the room. Some large stumps served
for stools. The comrades were no longer reduced to eating on their
knees, when the weather prevented their dining in the open air.

There was still the question of clothing, which was of great interest to
them, and they did the best they could. In that climate, and under that
latitude, there was no reason why they should not go about half naked;
but, at length, trousers, waistcoat, and linen shirt were all worn out.
How could they replace them? Were the sheep and the goats to provide
them with skins for clothing, after furnishing them with flesh for food?
It looked like it. Meanwhile, Godfrey had the few garments he possessed
frequently washed. It was on Tartlet, transformed into a laundress, that
this task fell, and he acquitted himself of it to the general
satisfaction.

Godfrey busied himself specially in providing food, and in arranging
matters generally. He was, in fact, the caterer. Collecting the edible
roots and the manzanilla fruit occupied him some hours every day; and so
did fishing with plaited rushes, sometimes in the waters of the stream,
and sometimes in the hollows of the rocks on the beach when the tide had
gone out. The means were primitive, no doubt, but from time to time a
fine crustacean or a succulent fish figured on the table of Will Tree,
to say nothing of the mol