نردبان طنابی

CHAPTER SIX

The Rope Ladder

After the meal, I said, ‘We must sleep on the ground tonight. I can’t see how we can get up into a tree this evening.’

Then I went to the beach with Fritz and Ernest. We looked for the things that we needed for a ladder. The beach was covered with pieces of wood of all sizes, carried there from ships by the sea.

‘It’ll be difficult to make a ladder out of these pieces of wood,’ said Fritz. ‘And it’ll be very heavy.’

‘Look at those tall thick plants there!’ cried Ernest. ‘They’re what we need! Bamboo!’

I cut some bamboo into pieces about six feet long. Then I tied them together, so I could carry them. Then I cut some straight sticks.

‘I can make a bow with this bamboo,’ I said. ‘And arrows from these sticks.’

We went back to the biggest tree, carrying the bamboo. We put it on the ground.

‘That branch is about thirty feet high,’ I said. ‘We’ve got more than sixty feet of thick rope and a lot of thin rope. Now we’ll put two long pieces of rope on the ground and we’ll cut pieces of bamboo a foot and a half long. Fritz, you cut the pieces. Ernest will help me with the rope.’

So we began to work.

‘Now,’ I said, ‘we must tie pieces of bamboo across the ropes to make steps. Then we’ll have a rope ladder.’

We worked very hard, and after a few hours our ladder was ready. Then I made a bow from another piece of bamboo.

‘Ernest,’ I said, ‘make arrows from these sticks. Put a big nail in one end.’

‘Oh!’ cried Jack. ‘A bow and arrows! What are you going to do with them? I want to play with them!’

‘I’m not making a toy, Jack. I’m going to shoot with this. But soon you’ll all have bows and arrows, because we must be careful with our gunpowder. When we’ve used this gunpowder, we won’t be able to get any more.

And, if there are dangerous men on the island, we’ll need our gunpowder.’

When the bow and arrows were ready, I tied a long piece of thin rope to an arrow and shot the arrow up over the branch. It came down on the other side, carrying the thin rope with it.

‘Ah!’ said Ernest - he always understood things quickly. ‘You’ll tie the rope ladder to this thin rope and pull it up on to the branch. Then you’ll hold it there while someone ties it to the branch.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You climb up there. You’re smaller than Fritz. And I don’t think Jack can tie the ladder well enough.’

Soon the ladder was tied to the branch.

‘That’s a good day’s work,’ I said. ‘Now we must tie up the animals, and we’ll sleep at the foot of the tree. Tomorrow we’ll begin to build our tree house.’

‘Look!’ said Jack. ‘The chickens are on our rope ladder.’

I looked. Each chicken was sitting on a step. They were already very comfortable.

I lit a big fire to keep away dangerous animals. Then I decided to stay awake and watch.