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David Mizzle was of opinion that the foot-lights "wos oncommon grand," which was an unquestionable fact, for they consisted of six tin lamps filled with seal-oil, from the wicks of which rose a compound of yellow flame and smoke that had a singularly luminous effect.
After Marian and Lucile had heard the crash against the door of the boarded-up house, and had stilled their wildly beating hearts, they dragged themselves halfway out of their sleeping-bags and sat up. "What was it?" Marian repeated. Her teeth were chattering so she could hardly whisper. "It saw the light from the seal-oil lamp," Lucile whispered. A cold chill ran up her back. "Sh! Listen!"
But the boy, seeming to have caught something of the purport of Marian's words, tore a splinter from the board wall of the cabin, and, having held it in the blaze of the seal-oil lamp until it was charred, began to draw on the floor. First he drew a large circle, then a small one.
Their solemn, intent faces were lit grotesquely by the uncertain glow of two seal-oil lamps, mounted on two posts, planted one in front of the right sleeping-bench, the other on the left. The Boy hesitated. Was it possible he could get used to the atmosphere? Certainly it was warm in here, though there was no fire that he could see.
They sat down on the sleeping-bag to listen, while the yellow light of the seal-oil lamp flickered across the dark, expressive face of the Eskimo. He bent over and drew imaginary circles on the floor, one small and one large, just as the boy had done with charcoal. "Here," he smiled, "one island. Here one. This island one house. Here "
The skipper and his three companions speedily made a small heap from the big pile of driftwood on the shingle, and lit it from the candle of a lantern. They poured a tin of seal-oil over the dry wreckage, and the red and yellow flames shot up.
And Conniston was smiling in a quizzical, distressed sort of way, with a hand at his chest. His open watch on the table pointed to the hour of midnight when the lesson went on. Still later he heated the muzzle of his revolver in the flame of the seal-oil. "It will hurt, old chap putting this scar over your eye. But it's got to be done. I say, won't it be a ripping joke on McDowell?"
This embarrassed him not because he was modest of spirit, however, but for the fact that the stench of the seal-oil had robbed him of his appetite, and that he keenly desired to conceal his feelings on the subject. "Eat; thou art hungry," Opee-Kwan commanded, and Nam-Bok shut both his eyes and shoved his fist into the big pot of putrid fish. "La la, be not ashamed.
Lamps were fashioned out of sardine-tins, with bits of surgical bandage for wicks; but as the oil consisted of seal-oil rendered down from the blubber, the remaining fibrous tissue being issued very sparingly at lunch, by the by, and being considered a great delicacy, they were more a means of conserving the scanty store of matches than of serving as illuminants.
You just shave it off thin like chipped dried beef and gulp it right down before it tastes too fishy." Marian did not think she would like it, but she found it not half bad. When they had dined, and had sat by the yellow glow of their seal-oil lamp for a time, they took a good long look at the moon as it shone out over the shimmering whiteness of the sea.
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