“And what are you going to do?” said the major drily. “Go back to the ship?”
“Go back to the ship, sir!” cried the stowaway wildly. “No, no, sir! Pray don’t leave me alone! I can’t bear it, sir—I can’t indeed—it’s too awful! Mr Mark, sir, don’t let him leave me! Say a kind word for me! I’d sooner lie down and die at once!”
He flung himself upon his knees, the spear falling beside him on the sand, as he joined his hands together and the weak tears began to stream down his cheeks.
“Get up!” said the major roughly, “and act like a man. Don’t be such a whimpering cur!”
“No, sir, please, sir, I won’t, sir; but I’m very weak and ill, sir. Take me with you, please, sir, and I’ll do anything you like, sir.”
“Why, you ought to be ashamed of yourself,” said the major sharply, “for thinking that two English gentlemen would be such brutes as to leave a sick and wounded man alone in a place like this. Eh, Mark?”
“Yes, sir,” said the lad, flushing at being called an English gentleman. “But he is very weak and ill.”
“That’s it, sir—that’s it,” cried the man piteously. “You will take me, then?”
“Of course. Come along,” said the major. “Confound that monkey!”
For, while they had been intent upon the man’s account of his escape, Jack had been busy covering himself with feathers, as he plucked away at first one and then another of the birds.