At two o’clock Mark and Bob resumed their work.  The latter suggested the necessity of getting food and water ashore for the pigs, as an act that humanity imperiously demanded of them; not humanity in the sense of feeling for our kind, but in the sense in which we all ought to feel for animal suffering, whether endured by man or beast.  Mark assented as to the food, but was of opinion a thunder shower was about to pass over the reef.  The weather certainly did wear this aspect, and Bob was content to wait the result, in order to save himself unnecessary trouble.  As for the pigs, they were still in the crater rooting, as it might be for life or death, though nothing edible had as yet rewarded them for their toil.  Perhaps they found it pleasant to be thrusting their noses into something that resembled soil, after so long a confinement to the planks of a ship.  Seeing them at work in this manner, suggested to Mark to try another experiment, which certainly looked far enough ahead, as if he had no great hopes of getting off the island for years to come.  Among the seeds of Captain Crutchely were those of oranges, lemons, limes, shaddocks, figs, and grapes; all plants well enough suited to the place, if there were only soil to nourish them.  Now, one of the hogs had been rooting, as best he might, just under the wall, on the northern side of the crater, making a long row of little hillocks, of earthy ashes, at unequal distances it is true, but well enough disposed for the nature of the different fruits, could they only be got to grow.  Along this irregular row of hillocks did Mark bury his seeds, willing to try an experiment which might possibly benefit some other human being, if it never did any good to himself.  When this was done, he and Betts left the crater, driving the hogs out before them.

Having made his plantation, Mark felt a natural desire to preserve it.  He got the royal, therefore, and succeeded in fastening it up as a substitute for a gate, in their natural gate-way.  Had the pigs met with any success in rooting, it is not probable this slight obstacle would have prevented their finding their way, again, into the cavity of the crater; but, as it was, it proved all-sufficient, and the sail was permitted to hang before the hole, until a more secure gate was suspended in its stead.

The appearances of the thunder-shower were so much increased by this time, that our mariners hastened back to the ship in order to escape a ducking.  They had hardly got on board before the gust came, a good deal of water falling, though not in the torrents in which one sometimes sees it stream down within the tropics.  In an hour it was all over, the sun coming out bright and scorching, after the passage of the gust.  One thing occurred, however, which at first caused both of the seamen a good deal of uneasiness, and again showed them the necessity there was for mooring the ship.  The wind shifted from the ordinary direction of the trades, during the squall,