“This boy’s dead enough,” and the words sounded so sharp and cruel that they quite stung me.
“I think he is,” said another voice, which I knew to be that of Walters.
“Oh yes; try him,” said the first speaker, Jarette, I was certain.
And now as I felt some one take hold of my hand and raise my arm, my full senses seemed to come, and with them an intense feeling of pain. It was just as if the lifting of that arm was connected with something within me which had been stopped up, for as the arm was allowed to drop heavily back, and Walters said callously—“Yes; he’s dead enough,” I shouted as loudly as I could—“No, I’m not!” and opened my eyes to stare up at the group on deck.
There was a hearty burst of laughter at this, and I suppose it was partly directed at Walters, who sprang up as sharply as if I had bitten him, and then joined weakly in the laugh.
“Just like him,” he said, with a contemptuous shrug of his shoulders. “Shamming again.”
“Come, I like that,” I said faintly. “Why, your life’s all sham.”
He took a step toward me as I lay there, and I thought he was about to kick me, but Jarette laid a hand upon his shoulder.
“Let him be,” he said shortly. “Look here, young Dale, where are you hurt?”
“I suppose I’m not hurt at all,” I said, speaking with a good deal of pain; “if I say I am, he’ll tell you I’m shamming.”