“‘Where am I to run to?’ I says. ‘I can’t run atop of the water.’
“‘No,’ he says; ‘but you could get in a boat when it was dark and row away.’ ‘I dursen’t,’ I says; ‘it would be stealing the boat.’ ‘You could borrow it,’ he says; ‘that’s what I’m going to do.’ ‘You are?’ I says. ‘I am,’ he says; ‘for I’d sooner die o’ thirst on the roaring main,’ he says, ‘than put up with any more.’ You did, didn’t you, mate?” he cried, appealingly.
“I did,” growled the carpenter; “and I stick to it.”
“He said that as soon as it was dark he should manage to lower one of the boats and follow yours, and ask you to take him as crew; and if you wouldn’t, he should go ashore and turn Robinson Crusoe.”
“That’s right, boy,” said the carpenter; “and I would.”
“And I says to him, sir, ‘Bill Cross,’ I says, ‘if I tars myself black, will you let me come with you and be your man Friday?’”
“And what did he say to that?” asked my uncle, frowning.
“Said I was black enough already, sir, without my having a black eye; and if I come with him, he’d promise me never to behave half so bad as the skipper did, so of course I come.”
“Took one of the ship’s boats and stole away with it?” said my uncle.
The boy nodded, and my uncle turned to the carpenter.