72 THE SHIPWRECK,

CHAPTER IX.

Industry and Activity — Incapacity and Awkwardness — Alterca-
tion —- Menaces. ;

Exuaustep and overpowered by the heat of the climate,
Count Charles recruited himself for a couple of days be-
neath the sweet shade of his favourite linden, amusing
- himself with Neptune’s playful tricks, or, when he thought
himself unseen, examining the progress his enemy was
making in his labours, without however addressing a single
word to Philip, who, on his side, maintained the same
dogged taciturnity.

The count could not imagine how Merville had come by
the hatchet and the saw which he was handling so
adroitly ; but he would not demean himself so far as to ask
him the question, The fact was simply this—Philip,
being in haste to return to the long boat, had left these
tools at the foot of a tree, where he had been cutting cocoa
nuts for the crew of the Achilles, and had subsequently
recollected and recovered them. In possession of these