“Yes, I remember, Jem; and he said the men ate till they were drunk; and you said it was all nonsense, for a man couldn’t get drunk without drink.”
“Yes, Mas’ Don; but I was all wrong, and Mike was right. Those wretches there are as much like Mike Bannock was when he bored a hole in the rum puncheon as can be. Eating too much makes people as stupid as drinking; and knowing what I do, I wishes I was in Africa and not here.”
“Knowing what you do, Jem?”
“Yes, Mas’ Don, knowing what I do. It’s what you know too. I can see you do.”
Don shuddered.
“Don’t, Jem, don’t; it’s too horrid even to think about.”
“Yes, dear lad, but we must think about it. These here people’s used to it, and done it theirselves, I daresay; and they don’t seem to mind; but we do. Ah, Mas’ Don, I’d rather ha’ been a sailor all my life, or been had by the sharks when we was swimming ashore; for I feel as if I can’t stand this. There, listen!”
There was a sound of shouting and singing from the beach below, and one of the guards tossed up his spear in a sleepy way, and shouted too, but only to subside again into a sluggish state of torpidity.
“Why, Mas’ Don, by-and-by they’ll all be asleep, and if we tried, you and me might get our arms and legs undone, and take a spear apiece, and kill the lot. What do you say?”
“The same as you will, if you think, Jem,” replied Don. “No.”