The ninth sun of their freedom, rising upon sandy and barren hillocks, bristling thick with cruel scrub, sees the six famine-stricken wretches cursing their God, and yet afraid to die. All around is the fruitless, shadeless, shelterless bush. Above, the pitiless heaven. In the distance, the remorseless sea. Something terrible must happen. That grey wilderness, arched by grey heaven stooping to grey sea, is a fitting keeper of hideous secrets. Vetch suggests that Oyster Bay cannot be far to the eastward—the line of ocean is deceitfully close—and though such a proceeding will take them out of their course, they resolve to make for it. After hobbling five miles, they seem no nearer than before, and, nigh dead with fatigue and starvation, sink despairingly upon the ground. Vetch thinks Gabbett's eyes have a wolfish glare in them, and instinctively draws off from him. Said Greenhill, in the course of a dismal conversation, “I am so weak that I could eat a piece of a man.”
On the tenth day Bodenham refuses to stir, and the others, being scarce able to drag along their limbs, sit on the ground about him. Greenhill, eyeing the prostrate man, said slowly, “I have seen the same done before, boys, and it tasted like pork.”
Vetch, hearing his savage comrade give utterance to a thought all had secretly cherished, speaks out, crying, “It would be murder to do it, and then, perhaps we couldn't eat it.”
“Oh,” said Gabbett, with a grin, “I'll warrant you that, but you must all have a hand in it.”
Gabbett, Sanders and Greenhill then go aside, and presently Sanders, coming to the Crow, said, “He consented to act as flogger. He deserves it.”
“So did Gabbett, for that matter,” shudders Vetch.
“Ay, but Bodenham's feet are sore,” said Sanders, “and 'tis a pity to leave him.”
Having no fire, they make a little breakwind; and Vetch, half-dozing behind this at about three in the morning, hears someone cry out “Christ!” and awakes, sweating ice.
No one but Gabbett and Greenhill would eat that night. That savage pair, however, make a fire, fling ghastly fragments on the embers, and eat the broil before it is right warm. In the morning the frightful carcase is divided. That day's march takes place in silence, and at midday halt Cornelius volunteers to carry the billy, affecting great restoration from the food. Vetch gives it to him, and in half an hour afterwards Cornelius is missing. Gabbett and Greenhill pursue him in vain, and return with curses. “He'll die like a dog,” said Greenhill, “alone in the bush.” Jemmy Vetch, with his intellect acute as ever, thinks that Cornelius may prefer such a death, but says nothing.
The twelfth morning dawns wet and misty, but Vetch, seeing the provision running short, strives to be cheerful, telling stories of men who have escaped greater peril. Vetch feels with dismay that he is the weakest of the party, but has some sort of ludicro-horrible consolation in remembering that he is also the leanest. They come to a creek that afternoon, and look, until nightfall, in vain for a crossing-place. The next day Gabbett and Vetch swim across, and Vetch directs Gabbett to cut a long sapling, which, being stretched across the water, is seized by Greenhill and the Moocher, who are dragged over.