"Or do we smash into it for ourselves? That's the game Tigerskin an' me tried, ten years ago. It wasn't good enough. You know how it panned out. Still, we ain't got old Pryse to reckon with now. He was a terror, he was! So what do you say, boys? Show hands for sticking-up—and now for breaking in. Then that settles it."
Engelhardt never knew which way it was settled.
"The she-devil!" said Simons. "The little snake! I can see her now, when she come along the board and sang out for the tar-boy all on her own account. That little deader, there, he was with her. By cripes, if she isn't dead herself by morning she'll wish she was! I wonder how she'll look to-night? Not that way, by cripes, that's one thing sure! You leave her to me, mates! I shall enjoy that part. She sha'n't die, because that's what she'd like best; but she shall apologize to me under my own conditions—you wait and see what they are. They'll make you smile. The little devil! Twelve pound a week! By cripes, but I'll make her wish she was as dead as her friend here. I'll teach her——"
"Stiffen me purple," roared Bill, "if the joker's not alive after all!"
The rogues were sitting round their fire in a triangle, Simons with his back to the supposed corpse; when he looked over his shoulder, there was his dead man glaring at him with eyes like blots of ink on blood-stained paper.
Engelhardt, in fact, had been physically unable to lie still any longer and hear Naomi so foully threatened and abused. But the moment he sat up he saw his folly, and tried, quick as thought, to balance it by gaping repeatedly in Simons's face.
"I beg your pardon, I'm sure," said he, in the civilest manner. "I'd been asleep, and couldn't think where I was. I assure you I hadn't the least intention of interrupting you."
His voice was still terribly husky. Bill seized the water-bag and stuck it ostentatiously between his knees. Simons only scowled.
"Please go on with what you were saying," said Engelhardt, crawling to the fire and sitting down between these two worthies. "All I ask is a drink and a crust. I've been out all day without bite or sup. Yes, and all last night as well! That's all I ask. I am dead tired. I'd sleep like a stone."