Page:The crater; or, Vulcan's peak.djvu/90

 84 THE CRATER; It was determined, therefore, to pass an hour or two ashore before the night shut in again. Previously to quitting the ship, Bob spoke of the poultry. There were but six hens, a cock, and five ducks, left. They were all as low in flesh and spirits, as it was usual to find birds that have been at sea fifty days, and the honest tar proposed turning them all adrift on the reef, to make their own living in the best way they could. Now and then a little food might be put in their way, but let them have a chance for their lives. Mark assented at once, and the coops were opened. Each fowl was carried to the taff- rail, and tossed into the air, when it flew down upon the reef, a distance of a couple of hundred feet, almost as a matter of course. Glad enough were the poor things to be thus liberated. To Mark s surprise, no sooner did they reach the reef, than to work they went, and commenced picking up something with the greatest avidky, as if let loose in the best supplied poultry-yard. Confident there was nothing for even a hen to glean on the rocks when he left there, the young man could not account for this, until turning his eyes inboard, he saw the ducks doing the same thing on deck. Examining the food of these last-mentioned animals, he found there were a great number of minute mucilaginous particles on the deck, which no doubt had descended with the late rain, and which all the birds, as well as the hogs, seemed eager to devour. Here, then, was a supply, though a short-lived one, of a manna suited to those creatures, which might render them happy for a few hours, at least. Bob caught the ducks, and tosseO them overboard, when they floundered about and enjoyed themselves in a way that communicated a certain pleasure even to the desolate and shipwrecked men who had set them at liberty. Nothing with life now remained in the ship but the goat, and Mark thought it best not to turn her ashore until they had greater facilities for getting the necessary food to her than the dingui afforded. As she was not likely to breed, there was no great use in keeping this animal at all, to say nothing of the means of feeding her, for any length of time; but Mark was unwilling to take her life, since Providence had brought them all to that place in company. Then he thought she might be a