“Not I, Mas’ Don, when the time comes; but it don’t seem to have come yet.”
“Why, the opportunity is splendid, man.”
“No, Mas’ Don, I don’t think so. If we take the boat, ’fore we’ve gone far they’ll ketch sight of us aboard, and send another one to fetch us back, or else make a cock-shy of us with the long gun.”
“Then let’s leave the boat.”
“And go ashore, and meet our messmates and the captain.”
“Go in another direction.”
“Out of the frying-pan into the fire,” said Jem, grinning. “Say, Mas’ Don, how do they cook their food?”
“Don’t talk nonsense, Jem; that’s only a traveller’s tale. I believe the people here will behave kindly to us.”
“Till we got fat,” said Jem, chuckling; “and then they’d have a tuck out. No, thank ye, Mas’ Don; my Sally wouldn’t like it. You see, I’m nice and plump and round now, and they’d soon use me. You’re a great long growing boy, thin as a lath, and it’d take years to make you fit to kill, so as it don’t matter for you.”
“There is a chance open to us now for escape,” said Don bitterly; “to get right away, and journey to some port, where we could get a passage to England as sailors, and you treat it with ridicule.”