"Why, it's night!" he exclaimed. "We've tramped all day, an' still we're in this awful passage, which mebbe goes straight through the middle of the world, an' mebbe is a circle—in which case we can keep walkin' till doomsday. Not knowin' what's before us so well as we know what's behind us, I propose we make a stop, now, an' try to sleep till mornin'."
"That will suit me," asserted the Ork, with a groan. "My feet are hurting me dreadfully and for the last few miles I've been limping with pain."
"My foot hurts, too," said the sailor, looking for a smooth place on the rocky floor to sit down.
"Your foot!" cried the Ork. "why, you've only one to hurt you, while I have four. So I suffer four times as much as you possibly can. Here; hold the candle while I look at the bottoms of my claws. I declare," he said, examining them by the flickering light, "there are bunches of pain all over them!"
"P'r'aps," said Trot, who was very glad to sit down beside her companions, "you've got corns."
"Corns? Nonsense! Orks never have corns," protested the creature, rubbing its sore feet tenderly.
"Then mebbe they're—they're— What do you call 'em, Cap'n Bill? Something 'bout the Pilgrim's Progress, you know."
"Bunions," said Cap'n Bill.
"Oh, yes; mebbe you've got bunions."
"It is possible," moaned the Ork. "But whatever they are, another day of such walking on them would drive me crazy."