"Fo' de Lawd's sake, Miss Jinny, spill it out! It am mighty powerful dope—it done fumented twice as long as befo'—it am boun' to give dat trash de blind-staggahs sho'tly!"
Instantly I understood, and a thrill of relief and of hope inexpressible shot through me. I raised to the troubled black face a glance which I trust was eloquent—it must needs have been to express the thankfulness I felt. Cookie responded with a solemn and convulsive wink—and I put the cup to my lips and after a brief parade of drinking passed it back to Cookie, spilling the contents on the ground en route.
Cookie retired with his tray in his most impressive cake-walk fashion, and in passing announced to Captain Magnus that "Miss Jinny say she mos' suhtinly am obligated to de gennelmun to' de refreshment of dis yere acidulous beverage." Which bare-faced mendacity provoked a loud roar of amusement from the sentinels, who were still sampling the cooling contents of the stone crock.
"Learning to like what I do already, hey?" guffawed the captain, and he called on Chris to drain another cup with him to the lady of his choice.
I have believed since that dragging, interminable time which I now lived through, that complete despair, where you rest quite finally on bedrock and have nothing to dread in the way of further tumbles, must be a much happier state than the dreadful one of oscillating between hope and fear. For a leaden-footed eternity, it seemed to me, I oscillated, longing for, yet dreading, the signs that Cookie's powerful dope had begun to work upon our guards—for might not the first symptoms be quite different from the anticipated blind staggers? Fancy a murderous maniac pair reeling about the clearing, with death-vomiting revolvers and gleaming knives!
And then suddenly time, which had dragged so slowly, appeared to gallop, and the morning to be fleeing past, so that every wave that broke upon the beach was the footfalls of the returning pirates. Long, long before that thirsty, garrulous pair grew still and torpid their companions must return—
And I saw Cookie, his stratagem discovered, dangling from a convenient tree.
Gradually the rough disjointed talk of the sailors began to languish. Covertly watching, I saw that Chris's head had begun to droop. His body, propped comfortably against a tree, sagged a little. The hand that held the cup was lifted, stretched out in the direction of the enticing jar, then forgetting its errand fell heavily. After a few spasmodic twitchings of the eyelids and uneasy grunts, Chris slumbered.
Captain Magnus was of tougher fiber. But he, too, grew silent and there was a certain meal-sack limpness about his attitude. His dulled eyes stared dreamily. All at once with a jerk he roused himself, turned over, and administered to the sleeping Chris a prod with his large boot.
"Hey, there, wake up! What right you got to be asleep at the switch?" But Chris only breathed more heavily.