"And the cholera time to spread?" queried the judge.
"We're but a small minority yet," persisted the senator.
"A minority always rules," smilingly said the bishop.
The senator smiled back. "There are two or three hundred of those deck passengers alone," he responded.
"Senator," said the judge, "what of that? We've taken upon ourselves to speak for all the cabin passengers on this boat, whether as yet they agree with us or not. They are as numerous as those foreigners, sir, and, my God! sir, they are our own people. Self-preservation is the first law!"
"Oh, surely you know," protested the senator, "I'm with you, heart and soul! We must extricate these people of our own from a situation whose desperateness most of them do not recognize. We'll go to the captain now, as soon as—as we must. But let us agree right here that whatever we require him to do we also require him to do of his own free will. He must shift no responsibility upon us. You have, of your sort, bishop, a constituency quite as sensitive as the judge's or mine, and we don't want to give any one a chance to start a false story which we might find it difficult to run down. And so we can hardly be too careful——"
The absent four had returned while he spoke. "Sir," interrupted the general, whose th's were getting thick, "ththat is what we have been—too careful!"
The hearts of the four were on fire. A chance word of the barkeeper, they said, had sent them to the stateroom of Hayle's twins, who, with tears of wrath, had confessed themselves prisoners; prisoners of their own word of honor—"after being knocked down——"
"What?" cried senator, judge, and bishop.
"Yes, sirs, one of them literally knocked down by the acknowledged minion of one Courteney, for having ventured to differ politically with another and for daring to mention the pestilence to a third."