“Don’t talk about eating, Ned; the idea makes me feel sick.”
“Fight it down then, sir. You must eat, or you can’t try to get away, and if you can’t try to get away, I can’t.”
“I’ll try, Ned,” said Jack abruptly.
“That’s right, sir; only let’s wait and see if they give us any first. Shame on ’em if they don’t.”
The pig extracted from the blacks’ hiding-place began to smell tempting enough to excite any one’s appetite, and as a good-sized piece was handed to each by their captors—
“Don’t mean to kill us yet, Mr Jack,” said Ned merrily. “Hope they don’t mean any of that nonsense later on.”
But Jack was too weary and low-spirited to reply to his companion’s jokes, and he lay back after a time, watching the soft glow over the volcano far above their heads, then the brilliant stars, which looked larger than at home, and glided suddenly into a deep sleep, from which he was awakened by a rough prod from the butt end of a spear.
The lad flushed angrily, but tried to curb his resentment, and turned away as he rose, to find Ned standing watching him in the early morning light.
“Never mind, Mr Jack,” he said softly. “It’s hard to bear; but this isn’t the time to show fight. That black brute kicked me to wake me, and it made me as savage as a bear. If he’d had boots on I should have hit him, I know I should, I couldn’t have helped it even if he’d killed me for it; but then you see he hadn’t boots on, though the sole of his foot’s almost like hoof.”
“They’re going on directly, Ned.”