In the silence that ensued, Gleazen's words seemed to echo and reëcho; though they were spoken quietly, even in jest, their significance was truly terrible.
"Gentlemen," said Arnold Lamont in a very low voice, "Seth Upham, I fear, is not well. We must not let him stand guard. We cannot trust him!"
"Name of heaven!" whispered Matterson, "the man's right. Upham is turning queer."
As I watched my uncle, my mother's only brother, the last of all my kin, a choking rose in my throat. He did not see me at all. He saw none of us. In mind and spirit he was thousands of miles away from us. I started toward him, but when his eyes met mine dully and with no indication that he recognized me, I swallowed hard and turned back.
Never was a night so long and ghastly! With all prepared for our dash to the river, with Uncle Seth wandering back and forth, and with the rest of us divided into three watches of two each, that overlapped by an hour, so that four men were always on guard, we watched and waited until midnight passed and the morning hours came.
When the moon was at the zenith, O'Hara woke Matterson, and we gathered by the packs, which were made up and ready.
"Poor Bull!" said O'Hara, brushing his hand across his eyes. "Sure, and I hate to leave him thus. If ever man deserved a decent burial, it's him."
"If men got what they deserved," Gleazen briefly retorted, "Bull would never have drove the ship on the island, and we'd never have had to divide up this here find which Bull dug up for us, and Bull would never have had to stand by the hill to get himself killed, in the first place."
Each man had tied up his own belongings to suit himself, and had put in his pocket his share of what little food was left. The different packs stood in the middle of the hut, but it was noticeable that, although each man was nearest his own, Matterson was eyeing Gleazen's with a show of keener interest.
"Let me carry your bundle, Neil, you with a hole in your leg," he said.