The pirate chief slowed down, and went steadily to work on the bread and meat. It was not much trouble to him to act the part, because his appetite was good, and the fruit he had eaten on the island that day had not proved too staying. All the time he was eating, he thought and thought.
He ate on in a sort of reverie, taking slice after slice of bread and meat as the farmer’s wife cut them off.
The woman watched him with tears in her eyes. “Poor boy” she murmured from time to time. “Poor boy; he must have been starving!”
The loaf of bread disappeared. The last of the leg of mutton disappeared. The good wife went to the cupboard and got a great piece of seed cake and cut it in slices.
Tom dealt with it slice by slice. The woman’s face became soft and more pitiful. She went to the cupboard again and brought out half a roly-poly.
Tom put his hand secretly down under the table cloth and let go the top button of his trousers.
“Poor boy,” reiterated the farmer’s wife; “poor boy.”
Two great womanly tears gathered in her eyes and slowly overflowed.
Tom, conscious that he was playing a star part, choked down a few more morsels of food; then he laid aside his knife and fork, wiped the perspiration from his forehead, and sat staring into vacancy with bulging eyes.