"All this had consumed many hours, and all the time we had been so much excited that we found ourselves quite exhausted when the meal was over, and we could do no more work that day; so we lay down again upon the grass, to talk and rest and sleep. When we came to sleep, however, we had now another motive, besides watching for a ship, to make us sleep one only at a time; for we must keep this fire going, which we had got with so much trouble. This was easily done, since we only had to add, from time to time, some branches of the Andromeda, and these kept up a smouldering fire.
"Before either of us went to sleep, we had seen that the first thing now was to catch more ducks; and this we could either of us do, besides watching the sea for ships, and the fire that it did not go out. Accordingly, as soon as the Dean had fallen asleep, I went about this work, fully resolved upon a plan as to how I should proceed. The knowledge of seals which I had acquired when in the _Blackbird_ had perhaps something to do with it.
"I knew, from the thickness of the seal's skin, that lines could be made out of it very well. You will remember the dead seal that I told you of the other day, lying down on the beach, where it had been thrown up out of the sea by the waves. I forgot to mention, in addition, that we found several other seals, or rather, I should say, parts of them, for most of them had been eaten up by the foxes, or had gone to pieces by decay. So I at once went down, as I was going to say, to the seal that I had first discovered, and, taking out my knife, I made a cut around his neck, close behind the ears. It was a very large seal, and I found it not an easy matter to lift him up so that I could get my knife all the way around him; but I managed to do it notwithstanding, and made not only one cut but a great many of them,--or rather, I should say, one continuous cut around and around the body of the dead animal; so you will easily understand that, in this way, by keeping my knife about an eighth of an inch from where it had gone before when it passed around, I obtained at last a long string, or rather one might say a thong, very strong and very pliable. It must have been at least a hundred feet in length when I stopped cutting it, and I divided it into three parts. Having done this, I next went back to where the ducks were thickest, when, of course, the birds flew off their nests. Then I fixed four traps, just as the Dean had done, tying to three of them the seal-skin strings which I had made, and to the fourth I tied the Dean's bit of twine; then I hid myself among the rocks, and waited for the birds to come back.