The thought
came to him that if he only had some way of keeping together a number
of them, they would serve very well for a candle in his cave at night.
How he longed for a glass bottle such as he had so often wantonly
broken when at home! Back of his shelter there was a hill where the
rock layers jutted out. He had noticed here several times the thin
transparent rock that he had seen in his father's store. It is called
isinglass.
"I will make a living lantern," he said aloud in his eagerness.
He soon had a suitable piece pried loose. He cut a part of a cocoanut
shell away and in its place he put a sheet of isinglass. That evening
at dark he gathered several handfuls of the great fire beetles and
put them in his lantern. What joy their glow gave him in his cave at
night. It was almost as much comfort as a companion. But while it
lighted up the deep dark of the cave and enabled him to move about,
he was unable after all to write in his diary at night. Every morning
he set his captives free. In the evening he would go out and capture
his light.
XXIII
ROBINSON IS SICK
One evening Robinson went to bed sound and well. The next morning he
was sick. Before he had only the heat of the day to complain of.
To-day he was freezing. He wanted to go to work to get warm, but even
this did not break his chill. It increased till his teeth chattered
with the cold.
"Perhaps," thought he, "if I can sleep a little I will get better.
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