“Fire! what!—you’ve cut it off and burnt it?” Mary nodded.
“Oh!” ejaculated Bart, and it sounded a groan.
“Could girl with long hair have worked her passage out here as a sailor-boy, and have come into that cane-brake and saved you two?” said Mary, sharply; and as Bart sat staring at her with dilated eyes once more, she bent down after gazing at Dinny, still soundly sleeping, and laid her hand with a firm grip on her brother’s shoulder.
He started into wakefulness on the instant, and gazed without recognition in the face leaning over him.
“Don’t you know me, Abel?” said Mary, sadly.
“You, Mary?—dressed like this!”
He started up angrily, his face flushing as hers had flushed, and his look darkened into a scowl.
“What else could I do?” she said, repeating her defence as she had pleaded to Bart. Then, as if her spirit rebelled against his anger, her eyes flashed with indignation, and she exclaimed hoarsely, “Well, I have saved you, and if you have done with me—there is the sea!”
“But you—dressed as a boy!” said Abel.
“Hush! Do you want that man to know?” whispered Mary, hoarsely. “My brother was unjustly punished and sent out here to die in prison, while I, a helpless girl, might have starved at home, or been hunted down by that devil who called himself a man? What could I do?”