"You're a pair of idiots, and I don't know which is the bigger."
"It must be neither or both, if we're a pair," chuckled Alzura.
"Why can't you be satisfied?" growled Barriero. "You've plenty of food, no work to do, and are well treated. And there isn't one chance in a thousand of your getting through."
"Crawford said one in a hundred!"
"Well, anyway, you're certain to lose your lives, and I shall be blamed for not stopping you. It's my duty to inform the sergeant, and have you chained up."
"You can't," said Alzura—"you can't betray us."
"You're two lunatics—stark, staring lunatics—and I wish you had told me nothing of your mad scheme."
"It's awfully risky," said I, "but not so mad as you think. We shall choose our night, and we know just where to land. Then we shall take provisions to last us three or four days."
"You won't need them," interrupted Barriero, in a tone of conviction which was far from encouraging.
But now that the affair had really been decided on, the dangers of the morass soon lost some of their terrors. We were able to talk about them calmly, and thus grew familiar with them, at least in imagination. Every day we set aside a portion of the dried meat and biscuit which formed the chief part of our food, until at last we had as much as could be carried easily. It would be stupid to load ourselves with too heavy a burden, as Barriero rather unkindly reminded us.