"Dem's my sentiments," said Ike, who looked as if he had been sleeping, though he must have been wide awake. "Foh instants, when I didn't know Mistah Sam, I didn't like him at all; but now dat I does know him better'n any one in de world, w'y as a consekence I likes him a heap sight more'n I does any one in de world."
Sam had been inclined to feel angry with Ike when he spoke in the way he did about dividing the food, but this little expression of genuine sentiment on the black boy's part quite touched his heart, and he showed his feeling by saying:
"Ah, Ike, you may have a hungry stomach, but it cannot be truthfully said that you haven't got a kindly heart."
"Bimeby, mebbe, I tell you sometings all 'bout me, Wah Shin," said the Chinaman, who felt that he must add something to the expressions of good-fellowship.
After a little further talk, in which they discussed the situation and vainly tried to guess where they were, Sam gave the order in which the guards should be called and handed his watch to Ike, whose turn came first, and lay down on the blankets, which were quite dry and comfortable by this time.
To prove that Ike was not in the least selfish, though his display of healthy-boy appetite might lead us to a different belief, it is but just to him to say that when his two hours guard were up, he did not call Sam, whose turn it was next, and who appeared to be sleeping very soundly, but he stood the whole four hours on watch and then awoke Wah Shin, and, after whispering to him what he had done added:
"Mistah Sam's got the keer of all on his shoulders, an' he needs all de sleep he kin git. W'y, I ken sleep any time; he can't, so I sez, let's let him sleep his fill w'ile he's at it."
They were up again before daylight, and the allowance of food for breakfast made ready, a portion being set apart for Maj, for though the dog was not at all a useful member of the little band, indeed, his consumption of rations for one made him undesirable, yet Sam could not find it in his heart to put the faithful creature out of the way.
There was no need to discuss the course they should next take; there was only one avenue that held out the promise of escape, and that was the swift stream rushing by their resting place to an unknown landing.
By this time all hands had become quite expert in loading and unloading the raft, so that it did not take them long to get under way this morning, each one in his accustomed place and Maj crouching down on the blankets in the center.