By the third day after his fire had been accomplished, Grenville had considerably altered their aspects and prospects of living. Their bamboo flagpole stood in a crevice of the highest rock, with "rags" of banana leaves idly flapping out a signal of distress; a number of pipkins, large and small, were grayly drying in the sun, to be subsequently fired; his bow was strung, beside three unfeathered arrows, crudely tipped with points that Sidney had pounded out of screws; charcoal was burning, down in the blackened clearing; a number of traps and dead-falls were nearing completion; and several basket loads both of sulphur and saltpeter were stored in caverns, which the man had roofed to protect them from the rain.
Much toil had been involved in these achievements. The bamboo pole, for instance, had been most laboriously burned off, close to its base. To accomplish this end, the man had carried coals of fire to the estuary swamp, created a blaze, and repeatedly heated his longest piece of brass, which had slowly charred a channel through the wood when smartly applied to its surface.
The cord that secured the "flag" upon this serviceable mast, had been made, like the string for the bow, by twisting together innumerable threads of the fiber imbedded in the bark of the creepers. This had then been "waxed" with the glutinous ooze from the nearest rubber tree, with which the jungle abounded. He had also found wild sisal in the rocky places of the island. This plant had a leaf like a bayonet, sometimes six feet long, and readily split into fibers of most astonishing strength, especially when three were braided into a cord.
Considerably to Grenville's amazement, the molding of jugs, some crucibles, and other essential vessels suggested by the presence of the clay, was not at all a simple matter. His material, which at first was mixed too soft, was readily stiffened to a workable consistency, and the bases and first six inches or more of flaring walls of his pipkins had been fashioned as a child would fashion "pies." It was when he undertook to crimp and contract this flaring rim that the craftsmanship known to the potter required once again to be evolved.
For a time the longer he wrought at the stubborn material the more completely Grenville was defeated by the clay. He discovered at last, as similar workmen in every age and clime have ultimately discovered, that potteries thus constructed by hand must be built up in rings, one ring at a time, especially where the walls draw in to an ever narrowing diameter.