While thus occupied, my mind was wondering what kind of people
inhabited this island, and why they kept such poor watch. . . .
We had run in openly in daylight, and yet it would seem that only
this dog had spied us.
"If they were savages, why, then, I had only my revolver with a fair
number of cartridges. . . . Some of my stock I had blazed away during
the last two days in vain attempts upon the life of the sea-birds
that ever wheeled out of fair range. The tool-chest, indeed,
contained a shot-gun, or the parts of one: but I had never pieced
them together, for the simple reason that all the cartridges
belonging to it had, through Grimalson's careless stowage, been
soaked and spoilt during the night of the gale. . . . Somehow, I
could not mentally connect savages with the ownership of this dog.
But the day wore on, and still no one hailed us from the cliffs or
the green slope.
"Now I must tell you that the boat's locker yet held a chunk or
two--less than a pound--of brined pork, hard as wood and salt as the
Dead Sea, that none of the crew at the last had a thought to boil in
the sea water, which only made it more intolerable.
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