Coming over to me, he crouched at my side and spoke of Kipping. He was savagely vindictive. "Hgh!" he grunted, "dat yeh crimp! He got dis nigger once, yass, sah. Got me to dat boa'din' house what he was runner foh. Yass, sah. Ah had one hunnerd dollahs in mah pants pocket, yass, sah. Nex' mohnin' Ah woke up th'ee days lateh 'boa'd ship bound foh London. Ah ain' got no hunnerd dollah in mah pants pocket. Dat yeh Kipping he didn't leave me no pants pocket." The old black pulled open his shirt and revealed a jagged scar on his great shoulder. "Look a' dat! Cap'n done dat—dat yeh v'yage. Hgh!"
At dusk Neddie's moaning woke the sleepers, and we held a council in which we debated plans for the future. Daring neither to venture abroad nor to eat the native fruits and leaves, exhausted by exposure, perishing of hunger and thirst, we faced a future that was dark indeed.
"As for me," said Davie calmly, "I can see only one way to end our misery."
He glanced at the cook's cleaver as he spoke.
"No, no!" Roger cried sharply. "Let us have no such talk as that, Davie." He hesitated, looking first at us,—his eyes rested longest on Neddie's hollow face,—then at the marsh; then he leaned forward and looked from one to another. "Men," he said, "I see no better way out of our difficulties than to surrender to the natives."
"Oh, no, no, sah! No, sah! Don' do dat, sah! No, no no!" With a yell black Frank threw himself on his knees. "No, sah, no, sah! Dey's we'y devils, sah, dey's wuss 'n red Injuns, sah!"
"Fool." Roger cried. "Be still!" Seeming to hold the negro in contempt, he turned to the rest of us and awaited our answer.
At the time we were amazed at his harshness, and the poor cook was completely overwhelmed; for little as Roger said, there was something in his manner of saying it that burned like fire. But later, when we looked back on that day and remembered how bitterly we were discouraged, we saw reason to thank God that Roger Hamlin had had the wisdom and the power to crush absolutely the first sign of insubordination.
Staring in a curious way at the cook, who was fairly groveling on the earth, Blodgett spoke up in a strangely listless voice. "I say yes, sir. If we're to die, we're to die anyhow, and there's a bare chance they'll feed us before they butcher us."
"Ay," said Davie. "Me, too!"
And Neddie made out to nod.