“Yes, sir, I do,” I says. “I was just a-thinking about ’em when you spoke.”
“Were you?” he says, brightening up, and laying down his pistol.
“Yes, I was,” I says, “but don’t you lay down that there bullet-iron, for you never know how soon you may want it, sir. While we’re like this, sir, you’ll have to sleep with both eyes open, and you a-nussin’ a pistol; while as to what you gets to eat, you must pick that up on the point of your cutlash.”
“But about the birds,” he says eagerly. “How many are there left?”
“Well, sir,” I says, “I can’t rightly say; but I was a-thinking that if we could get ’em up on deck by shoving a hole through the wires with a boat-oar, there’d be enough of ’em, with ’conomy, to last us all for eight days.”
“What?” he says, staring.
“Why,” I says, “’lowancing ourselves to one big bird apiece, or two little uns, we could keep ourselves alive for a bit.”
He didn’t say a word, but looked just for all the world as if he thought it would ha’ been a deal more like the right thing to do to cut one of us up small to feed his little cock-sparrows and things, if they ran short of food. So, just out of a bit of spite like, I says to him dryly: “You might try Miss Bell with them two doves now, sir,” I says.
“Hold your tongue!” he says quite fierce, and looking to see if Mr Ward had heard.
“Wouldn’t make a bad roast, sir, and this here sun’s hot enough to cook bullock.”