For some time I have said nothing of the _rats_. Do not fancy, from
this silence about them, that they had gone away and left me to myself!
They had done no such thing. They were around and about me, as brisk as
ever, and as troublesome. Bolder they could not have been, unless they
had positively assailed me; and no doubt such would have been the case,
had I exposed myself to their attack.
But, whenever I moved, my first care had been to close them out, by
means of walls, which I constructed with pieces of cloth, and thus only
had I kept them at bay. Now and then, when I had passed from place to
place, I could hear and feel them all around me; and twice or three
times had I been bitten by one or another. It was only by exercising
extreme vigilance and caution, that I was enabled to keep them from
attacking me.
This parenthesis will, no doubt, lead you to anticipate what I am coming
to, and enable you to guess what was the idea that had taken possession
of my mind. It had occurred to me, then, that instead of letting the
rats eat me, _I should eat them_. That was it exactly.
I felt no disgust at the thought of such food; nor would you, if placed
in a situation similar to mine. On the contrary, I hailed the idea as a
welcome one, since it promised to enable me to carry out my plan of
cutting my way up to the deck--in other words, of _saving my life_.
Indeed, as soon as I had conceived it, I felt as if I was actually
saved. It only remained to carry out the intention.
I knew there were many rats--too many, I had thought before--but now I
cared not how plentiful they were. At all events, there were enough of
them to "ration" me for a long while--I hoped long enough for my
purpose. The question was, how should I capture them?
I could think of no other way but by feeling for them with my hands, and
boldly grasping them, one at a time, and so squeezing the life out of
them. I had already given my attention to trapping them, without
success. I had, as you know, killed one, by the only ingenuity I could
think of, and likely enough I might get one or two more in the same way,
but it was just as likely I might not; or even if I succeeded in killing
one or two, the rest might become shy of me, and then the supply would
stop. Better, therefore, to consider some plan for capturing a large
number of them at once, and so have a larder that would last me for ten
or twelve days. Perhaps by that time I might be within reach of more
palatable food. This would be wiser, as well as safer; and I remained
for a long while considering how I should make a wholesale capture.
Necessity is the parent of invention; and I suppose, by the help of
this, more than from any real genius I possessed for contriving, I at
last succeeded in sketching out the plan of a rat-trap. It was
certainly of the simplest kind, but I felt pretty sure it would be
effective. I should make me a large bag out of the broadcloth, which I
could easily do, by cutting a piece of the proper length, and sewing up
the two sides with a string. Strings I had in plenty for the rolls of
cloth had been tied with strong pieces of twine, and of course these
were at hand. I should use the blade of my knife for a needle, and by
the same instrument I should be enabled to reeve round the mouth of the
bag a strong piece of the twine, to act as a draw-string.
I not only _should_ do all this, but _did_ it without further delay; for
in less than an hour I had my bag (net, I called it) quite finished,
draw-string rove around the mouth, and all complete for action.