“Well, I don’t wonder, sir. I couldn’t at first. They brought in a lot of bananas with the water, but I couldn’t touch ’em at first. When that Frenchman came, though, and saw that I hadn’t eaten anything, he turned rusty, and said I was trying to starve myself to death, and that it wouldn’t do, because I must remember that I was a horstrich now, and I wasn’t to play no tricks like that.”
“Said you were an ostrich?”
“Yes, sir; that’s right. I don’t know why, and I thought perhaps I hadn’t heard him rightly, being so muddled-like. But I’m sure now that’s what he said. Perhaps he said it because he thought I was a long-legged one and meant to run away; and I should have been about doing so before now if there hadn’t been reasons.”
“What reasons, Pete?”
“Why, you, sir. You don’t suppose I was going to cut and leave my mate in such a hole as this?”
“Ostrich?” said Archie dreamily. “What could he mean by that? Oh—prisoners! He called you a hostage, and we are to be kept as hostages for some reason connected with something that’s going on.”
“Ah! that’s right, sir.”
As the young private sat on the palm-leaf-covered floor of the wooden building, gazing at his companion in misfortune, and thinking of how changed he looked, Archie slowly closed his eyes and appeared to be asleep, though he was now trying to make up for lost time, and thinking deeply.
“Wonder what’s the matter with his eyes,” mused the young private. “He can’t see, or else he wouldn’t keep on talking about its being dark.”
Suddenly Archie unclosed his eyes and said: