"That's a different matter. Of course, I'll not starve if there's is any thing on board the vessel to eat, but I won't steal. Where are you going to get your provisions?"
"At Mr. Henry's store."
"O, now, suppose you should be caught? That would kill the expedition at once. Johnny Harding sleeps in the store every night."
"Does he?" exclaimed the governor. "That's something I didn't calculate on; but I guess we aint much afraid of him. If we can only get inside the store without awaking him, we can manage him easy enough. I'll have a club, or something, an' the sight of it will keep him quiet while the other fellers are securin' the provisions."
Tom was amazed at the coolness with which the governor discussed this villainous plan for supplying the commissary of the Crusoe band. He was hardly prepared for so desperate an undertaking, and yet, at the same time, he had determined upon the perpetration of an offense which was even more atrocious in the eyes of the law than the one Sam had proposed. When it first entered his mind, he had been terrified at the bare thought of it; but he had pondered upon it so often, and had weighed so many schemes for its accomplishment, that the enormity of the crime had finally dwindled into insignificance. Perhaps, if he had spent as much time in thinking about robbing Mr. Henry's store as he had about destroying the Storm King, Sam's proposition would not have startled him in the least. The fact was, Tom had long been going down hill, in a moral point of view. Like every one else who does not advance, he was retrograding. There is no such thing as standing still in this world. A boy grows better or worse every day of his life. The change may be so gradual as to escape the notice of those around him, but it is, nevertheless, surely going on. The truth of this had been fully illustrated in Tom's case. From studying up schemes for mischief, which were simply intended to amuse himself and companions, he had come, by easy steps, to think seriously of attempting a crime, to revenge himself upon his father, the students, and the principal of the academy. He did not expect to accomplish it without being discovered; and he knew that, if he was captured, his punishment would be something more terrible than any thing he had yet experienced. But this thought did not deter him. He was resolved to carry out his new idea, if within the bounds of possibility, and to escape the consequences by running away from the village.
"Well, cap'n, what do you say?" asked the governor, after Tom had sat gazing thoughtfully at the ground for several minutes. "We must have something to eat, an that's the only way I know of to get it."
"You can do as you please," was the answer. "I shall not take any part in robbing the store; there is too much danger in it."
"Well, we can get along without your help. You can stand by and look on. You said something about gettin' even with them 'cademy swells, didn't you?"
"Yes, I did. I am going to burn that yacht."
It was now Sam's turn to be astonished. He started up and looked at his companion as if he hardly believed that he could be in earnest.