“Well,” he said, “take him some, but mind he don’t get out.”
I rose eagerly. Mr Preddle smiled all over his round, plump face, and well filled a plate, which I bore to the cabin in which Walters was prisoned, and unfastening it, bore it in.
He was leaning against the ship’s side, gazing out of the cabin-window, and would not turn his head.
“I’ve brought you some dinner,” I said, but he paid no attention, and I repeated the words, but still he did not move. “Oh, very well,” I said. “If you like to be sulky, be so. I’ll take it back.”
He faced round in an instant. Hunger is, after all, very taming.
“Set it down,” he said shortly; and thereat our eyes met, and he saw my bruised and disfigured features. His face expanded in an unpleasantly triumphant grin.
“Oh, all right,” I said, setting the plate and biscuit down on the locker, though feeling all the time as if I should like to take it back. “Laugh away; you don’t look so very beautiful, Mr Pirate Lieutenant.”
He gave an angry start, and the smile changed to a savage frown, which did not improve a pair of terribly black eyes and a cut and swollen lip.
But I was ready to give him quite as defiant a look as I opened the door, and then going out I re-locked him in, and went back to my place, ready for some more of the kangaroo stew.
“Well, was he very grateful?” said Mr Brymer.