“There were to be three, weren’t there, boys?” Will blunderingly replied to him, and asked of the others.
“Why, how do you know?” Marmaduke asked in surprise. “The letter says nothing about the number of jailers; so, how can you tell? What do you mean, anyway, Will?”
Will looked so disconcerted that Marmaduke, although his faith in Sauterelle was still unshaken, began to suspect that the boys were trying to impose on him in some way.
At this crisis the traitor Jim grinned, and said, “Well, you fellows needn’t make faces at me after this! Will has said worse than I did.”
Let it not be supposed that Jim’s treachery lay in seeking to overthrow the plot. By no means; he rejoiced in it, and spoke as he did only to revenge himself on the others for scowling at him so wickedly, as related in the beginning of this chapter. Such was Jim, who could bear malice for a long time; while the others, although they might be very angry for a few minutes, soon subdued their passions, and never “nursed their wrath.”
And yet these unguarded words nearly made an end of the entire plot. It was now in real danger; again it tottered on its foundation. Only the greatest tact and presence of mind could save it from utter destruction.
Charles was the one to avert such a disaster, and he said jokingly, as though the salvation of the plot did not depend on him: “Here are two extraordinary juveniles; one thinks because a white man in his school-book was captured by Indians and guarded by three jailers, every captive is bound to have just three! The other thinks because a boy makes a face at him he is brewing some great wickedness!”
It was not so much the words he said as the nonchalant way in which he said them. The happy boldness of acknowledging that somebody had “made faces” at Jim disarmed Marmaduke, and for the time, at least, his suspicions were allayed.
Will had too much sense to be offended at being thus ridiculed. If he had answered back sharply, a quarrel would certainly have ensued, and then the plot would as certainly have been blown up. As for Jim, though sulky and wrathful, he also held his peace.