"I said it! I knew it," he cried, as he approached. "'You and me, Haymoss'—the blessed words stayed in my noddle, and I knew 'ee would come back somewhen, dear soul. But we be in piteous case. 'Tis a long ninny-watch we ha' kept, and hope was wellnigh drownded, sir. We could not make it out; we was mazed, every man of us; but you be come back, praise be to God."
He told how the disappearance of the Mirandola had filled them first with consternation, then with bitter rage. Some of the men declared that they had been decoyed to the island; that they had been betrayed and deserted for the sake of the treasure. From the first Copstone and Whiddon had absolutely refused to believe that Dennis and Turnpenny had wilfully left them; Hugh Curder, indeed, had made a shrewd guess at what had actually happened; but the rest clung to their first notion, gave way to bursts of rage and reviling, and as the days passed, settled down into a state of moody despair.
Copstone had tried to induce them to fit out the Maid Marian for sea, but he had found it impossible to whip up enough energy among them. They had some reason for their reluctance, inasmuch as, the stores of the Maid Marian having been put aboard the Mirandola, there was no provision for a long voyage. The fruits of the island would spoil in a week or so, whereas if they clung to the island they were at least sure of finding a sufficient subsistence. But they had been troubled even on this point, for some of the men fell ill through recklessly eating fruits and berries without first ascertaining whether they were fit for food, and with broken health their spirits had been still further depressed.
"Poor souls!" said Turnpenny. "'Ee do look a wangery and witherly crew. But 'ee be all here, all twelve, not a man lacking? My heart! where be Gabriel Batten?"
"He never come back!"
"Never come back! What do 'ee mean?"
"We looked for en, up along and down along, but nary a crim of him did we see."
"Ay, and another be gone, too," said Hugh Curder. "But a sennight agone, poor Joe Toogood vanished out of our sight, and we never seed him again."
"Be there devils upon the island, Haymoss?" asked Ned Whiddon, anxiously. "Be there pixies that lead poor souls into some ditch or quagmire, where they be swallowed quick in the pluffy ground? Once we was bold mariners all, but now we be poor timorsome creatures, afeard when the wind soughs in the trees."
Dennis remembered the boa-constrictor from whose clammy coils he had saved the monkey that now sat upon his shoulder.