Don groped along by the damp wall till he reached the place where his companion lay, and then went down on his knees beside him.
“It seems to be all over, Jem,” he said.
“Over? Not it, my lad. Seems to me as if it’s all just going to begin.”
“Then we shall be made sailors.”
“S’pose so, Mas’ Don. Well, I don’t know as I should so much mind if it warn’t for my Sally. A man might just as well be pulling ropes as pushing casks and winding cranes.”
“But we shall have to fight, Jem.”
“Well, so long as it’s fisties I don’t know as I much mind, but if they expect me to chop or shoot anybody, they’re mistook.”
Jem became silent, and for a long time his fellow-prisoner felt not the slightest inclination to speak. His thoughts were busy over their attempted escape, and the risky task of descending by the rope. Then he thought again of home, and wondered what they would think of him, feeling sure that they would believe him to have behaved badly.
His heart ached as he recalled all the past, and how much his present position was due to his own folly and discontent, while, at the end of every scene he evoked, came the thought that no matter how he repented, it was too late—too late!
“How are you now, Jem?” he asked once or twice, as he tried to pierce the utter darkness; but there was no answer, and at last he relieved the weariness of his position by moving close up to the wall, so as to lean his back against it, and in this position, despite all his trouble, his head drooped forward till his chin rested upon his chest, and he fell fast asleep for what seemed to him only a few minutes, when he started into wakefulness on feeling himself roughly shaken.