“Amigos!” he says—an old appellation, considering the proposal he is about to make—“since there’s no food obtainable, it’s clear we’ve got to die of starvation. Though, if we could only hold out a little longer, something might turn up to save us. For myself, I don’t yet despair but that some coasting craft may come along; or they may see our signal from the shore. It’s only a question of time, and our being able to keep alive. Now, how are we to do that?”
“Ay, how?” asks Velarde, as if secretly prompted to the question.
“Well,” answers Padilla, “there’s a way, and only one, that I can think of. There’s no need for all of us to die—at least, not yet. Some one should, so that the others may have a chance of being saved. Are you all agreed to it!”
The interrogatory does not require to be more explicitly put. It is quite comprehensible; and several signify assent, either by a nod, or in muttered exclamations. A few make no sign, one way or the other; being too feeble, and far gone, to care what may become of them.
“How do you propose, Padilla?”
It is again Velarde who questions.
Turning his eyes towards the grotto, in which the two ladies have taken refuge from the hot rays of the sun, the ruffian replies:
“Well, camarados! I don’t see why men should suffer themselves to be starved to death, while women—”
Harry Blew does not permit him to finish his speech. Catching its significance, he cries:
“Avast there! Not another word o’ that. If any o’ as has got to be eaten, it must be a man. As for the women, they go last—not first. I, for one, will die afore they do; an’ so’ll somebody else.”