“Why should we not abscond into the woods, near to the shore, and live on fruits and shell-fish, until we could make us a boat?”
“And where would you voyage to in your boat? The nearest land is a hundred miles away.”
“We might be taken up,” said I.
“A chance in a thousand thousands, and then by one of the Doctor’s ships belike! You speak as a child.”
“Well then,” said I desperately, “why should we not abscond into the woods until a ship leaves, and smuggle us away on board of her, and take our chance?”
“Of being tormented to death,” said Ambrose.
I could answer nothing to this; and I left that discourse, to ask him:
“Is that lad crazy? The Doctor conversed him as though he was rational.”
“The lad is a dæmon, or familiar, of the Doctor,” answered Ambrose. “He is, as I may say, super-rational. He hath strange powers. He can see spirits.”
“What meant he by saying the Toad was out?”