in the roof let in the wet, which lay in little slimy puddles beneath.
Still, with all their drawbacks, they were decidedly better than the open
beach; a very short experience of which, in that inclement climate, would
certainly have killed them; and they thankfully decided to make the best
of them. Accordingly, the smaller of the two huts was given up to Augusta
and the boy Dick, while Mr. Meeson and the sailors took possession of the
large one. Their next task was to move up their scanty belongings (the
boat having first been carefully beached), and to clean out the huts and
make them as habitable as possible by stretching the sails of the boat on
the damp floors and covering up the holes in the roof as best they could
with stones and bits of board from the bottom of the boat. The weather
was, fortunately, dry, and as they all (with the exception of Mr. Meeson,
who seemed to be quite prostrated) worked with a will, not excepting
Master Dick--who toddled backwards and forwards after Augusta in high
glee at finding himself on terra firma--and by midday everything that
could be done was done. Then they made a fire of some drift-wood--for,
fortunately, they had a few matches--and Augusta cooked the two fowls
they had got out of the floating hen-coop as well as circumstances would
allow--which, as a matter of fact, was not very well--and they had
dinner, of which they all stood sadly in need.

After dinner they reckoned up their resources. Of water there was an
ample supply, for not far from the huts a stream ran down into the fjord.
For food they had the best part of a bag of biscuits weighing about a
hundred pounds. Also there was the cask of rum, which the men had moved
into their own hut. But that was not all, for there were plenty of
shellfish about if they could find means to cook them, while the rocks
around were covered with hundreds of penguins, including specimens of the
great "King penguin," which only required to be knocked on the head.
There was, therefore, little fear of their perishing of starvation, as