Elaine once more responded, in her honest, impulsive manner.
"I could knit some things, I'm sure, if you'd cut me a pair of needles."
"Cut 'em to-night," he answered. "That meat must be done, and my potteries need attention."
He dropped in her lap the forks he had roughly completed, and strode away to his fire.
The porcupine dinner was good. In its ball of clay, Grenville brought it to the cave in the basket that he used for heavy burdens.
It was far too hot to be handled carelessly. And when he broke away the earthy covering and leaves, and arranged the steaming pieces on the platter Elaine had prepared, it was perfectly cooked, as tender as quail, and of a flavor surprisingly fine.
The banquet, however, would have been immeasurably improved by the commonest of bread and potatoes. To provide some palatable substitute for these essential commonplaces of civilization became another of Grenville's problems, which, he told himself, he must tackle--after the tiger.
Everything was after the tiger, or else over-fraught with danger. The thought of this made Grenville fret more than anything demanding his attention. That night, when Elaine had finally retired, he went to his fuses, broke off a length, and returned to light it at his fire. It was still too damp, from the juices of the plant, to burn efficiently. His bomb he, therefore, would not make until the following afternoon.
The fire about his potteries he was now permitting to die. It could not be altogether abandoned, since a too sudden cooling of the vessels would crack and ruin every one. Therefore, from time to time, he went to the furnace to regulate the heat. He had leveled a rock for a table, at the fireplace near his cave, and on this he finally spread the mysterious paper and parchment recovered from the tube.
They had been all day neglected. Grenville had thoroughly intended a daylight examination of the parchment, concerning the nature of which he was considerably in doubt.
A new supply of whittled wooden "tablets" on which to write lay ready to his hand. Scratching at his head with his pencil, he studied the hieroglyphics for an hour or more before he returned to the written sheet with the scrawl spelled out in cipher.