"N—no, but Ned Dotey thought he heard one roar the other night."
"Father would not take our mastiff Trug on land lest they kill him. Trug would give 'em a fight for it, though. But he couldn't fight the serpents; nobody could. Did you know, Francie, there's a serpent here in America,—they call it the rattlesnake,—and if it but breathe on you, you die presently."
"How do you know?" asked Francis, awed, but incredulous.
"My father read it in a book about plantations in Virginia. Maybe the serpents lie close in cold weather, though, so you did not see them." Miles was silent a long instant, while he gazed fixedly at the mysterious shore yonder, where all these rarities were to be met with. "The trees do not look like our English trees," he said, half to himself, "but I'd fain go in among them. Perhaps you found conies there, Francis? There were a plenty of them on the common at home; Trug and I used to chase them, and 'twas brave sport."
"Mayhap if you had Trug with you, you could start some here," suggested Francis. "Tell you, Miles, you beg your father let you go ashore to-morrow, and I'll go too, and we'll seek for conies together. Will you?"
"'Tis no use," Miles answered, scowling straight ahead.
"Why not?"
"Father says I cannot go," the boy blurted out. "I answered him saucily this morning, and he said for that I should not stir foot off the ship for a week. I think—I think he might let me go ashore. Along the first I was coughing, so my mother said I must not venture in the boat; and then my sister Dolly was ailing, and I must stay to bear her company; and then it stormed; and now he will not let me go. And I am so weary of this ship!"
"I'd not bear such usage from any man," Francis boasted grandly. "If 'twere my daddy treated me so harshly, I'd tell him to his face 'a' was a sour old curmudgeon, and—"
"You need not talk so of my father," Miles interrupted sullenly, though he held his eyes fixed upon the shore line, not on the speaker. It was hard, while he looked toward the land of wonders, still unknown to him, to think quite kindly of the father who had arbitrarily shut him out from the enjoyment of it. "If you miscall him so again, Francis, I'll fight you," he added, conscience-stricken, in the hope of making amends for the disloyalty of his thoughts.