“What about me, then, sir?”
“You will go to the boat directly with Jackum. I shall make him go.”
“Right, sir, and wait in the boat till the ship blows up. And some day if I get away from here and reach Brisbane and your father comes to me and says, ‘Where’s my boy?’ I ups and says, ‘He wouldn’t leave the doctor, sir, who was lying bad, having been shot; so me and a black fellow takes to the boat and rows half a mile away so’s to be out o’ reach o’ the falling bits when the Soosan blew up as she did; and a werry beautiful sight it was.’ Then he says to me, he says—Yah! I’m blessed if I know what he’d say; all I knows is that I aren’t going to meet him; not me, my lad; I’d sooner have a blow up from the Soosan than one from him.”
“Bob,” said Carey, softly, “I wish I could reach up and shake hands with you.”
“Well, so you can, dear boy,” said the old sailor, huskily. “Thankye, my lad. Go and sneak away at a time like this? I’m made of a different bit o’ stuff to that. I say, lookye here, Master Carey; I bleeve it’s all flam and bunkum. He aren’t got no magazine to fire, or else he aren’t got no pluck to do it. There won’t be no blow up, and we’re a-going to face it with a bit o’ British waller, eh?”
“Yes, Bob, we must face it,” replied Carey.
“That’s right, sir; then we’ll do it comf’table and like men. Lookye here, my lad, you must be ’bout starving.”
“Starving, Bob? I had not thought of it,” said the boy, sadly.
“Then I’ll think for you. I say you must have something, and so must I. Fellow’s engine won’t work without coal. Hi! Jackum! Something to eat?”
The black bounded to his side.