Perhaps we have _drifted_ too far adown the currents of the ocean. From
our digression let us return to out special "Waifs." We left them
making preparations to roast the shark-flesh,--not in single steaks, but
in a wholesale fashion,--as if they had intended to prepare a "fish
dinner" for the full crew of a frigate.
As already stated, fuel they had in sufficiency; or, at all events, the
best of oil, that would serve as such. The spermaceti could not be
readily kindled, nor its blaze kept up, without wicks. But neither was
there any difficulty about this. There was a quantity of old rope trash
on the raft, which had been fished up among the wreck of the _Pandora_,
and kept in case of an emergency. It needed only to restore this to its
original state of tarry fibre, when they would be provided with wick
enough to keep the lamp long burning. It was the lamp itself, or rather
the cooking furnace, that caused them uneasiness. They had none. The
tiny tin vessel that had already served for a single meal would never do
for the grand _roti_ they now designed making. With it, along with time
and patience, they might have accomplished the task; but time to them
was too precious to be so wasted; and as to patience,--circumstanced as
they were, it could scarcely be expected.
They stood in great need of a cooking-stove. There was nothing on board
the _Catamaran_ that could be used as a substitute. Indeed, to have
kindled such a fire as they wanted on the raft,--without a proper
material for their hearth,--would have seriously endangered the
existence of the craft; and might have terminated in a conflagration.
It was a dilemma that had not suggested itself sooner--that is, until
the shark-steaks had been made ready for roasting. Then it presented
itself to their contemplation in full force, and apparently without any
loophole to escape from it.
What was to be done for a cooking-stove?
Snowball sighed as he thought of his caboose, with all its paraphernalia
of pots and pans,--especially his great copper, in which he had been
accustomed to boil mountains of meat and oceans of pea-soup.
But Snowball was not the individual to give way to vain regrets,--at
least, not for long. Despite that absence of that superior intellect,--
which flippant gossips of so-called a "Social Science" delight in
denying to his race, themselves often less gifted than he,--Snowball was
endowed with rare ingenuity,--especially in matters relating to the
_cuisine_, and in less than ten minutes after the question of a
cooking-stove had been started, the Coromantee conceived the idea of one
that might have vied with any of the various "patents" so loudly
extolled by the ironmongers, and yet not so effective when submitted to
the test. At all events, Snowball's plan was suited to the
circumstances in which its contriver was placed; and perhaps it was the
only one which the circumstances would have allowed.
Unlike other inventors, the Coromantee proclaimed the plan of his
invention as soon as he had conceived it.
"Wha' for?" he asked, as the idea shaped itself in his skull,--"wha' for
we trouble 'bout a pot fo' burn de oil?"
"What for, Snowy!" echoed the sailor, turning upon his interrogator an
expectant look.
"Why we no make de fire up hya?"
The conversation was carried on upon the back of the whale,--where the
sharks had been butchered and cut up.
"Up here!" again echoed the sailor, still showing surprise. "What
matter whether it be up here or down theear, so long's we've got no
vessel,--neyther pot nor pan?"
"Doan care a dam fo' neyder," responded the ex-cook. "I'se soon show
ye, Mass' Brace, how we find vessel, big 'nuff to hold all de oil in de
karkiss ob de ole cashlot, as you call him."
"Explain, nigger, explain!"
"Sartin I do. Gib me dat axe. I soon 'splain de whole sarkumstance."
Ben passed the axe, which he had been holding, into the hands of the
Coromantee.
The latter, as he had promised, soon made his meaning clear, by setting
to work upon the carcass of the _cachalot_, and with less than a dozen
blows of the sharp-edged tool hollowing out a large cavity in the
blubber.
"Now, Mass' Brace," cried he, when he had finished, triumphantly
balancing the axe above his shoulder, "wha' you call dat? Dar's a lamp
hold all de oil we want set blaze. You d'sire me `crow' de hole any
wida or deepa, I soon make 'im deep's a draw-well an' wide as de track
ob a waggon. Wha' say, Mass' Brace?"
"Hurraw for you, Snowy! It be just the thing. I dar say it's deep
enough, and wide as we'll want it. You ha got good brains, nigger,--
not'ithstanding what them lubbers as they call filosaphurs say. I'm a
white, an' niver thought o' it. This'll do for the furness we want.
Nothin' more needed than to pour the sparmacety into it, chuck a bit o'
oakum on the top, an' set all ablaze. Let's do it, and cook the wittles
at once."
The cavity, which Snowball had "crowed" in the carcass of the whale was
soon filled with oil taken from the case. In this was inserted with due
care a quantity of the fibre, obtained by "picking" the old ropes into
oakum.
A crane was next erected over the cavity,--a handspike forming one
support and an oar the other. The crane itself consisted of the long
iron arrow and socket of one of the harpoons found in the carcass of the
_cachalot_.
Upon this was suspended, as upon a spit, so many slices of shark-meat as
could be accommodated with room, and when all was arranged, a "taper"
was handed up from below, and the wick set on fire.
The tarry strands caught like tinder; and soon after a fierce bright
blaze was seen rising several feet above the back of the _cachalot_,--
causing the shark-steaks to frizzle and fry, and promising in a very
short space of time to "do them to a turn."
Any one who could have witnessed the spectacle from distance, and not
understanding its nature, might have fancied that the _whale was on
fire_!