“Poor fellow!” said Moses to Molloy, “I don’t wonder you are tired, for you not only carried twice as much as any of us, but you took part of my load. Indeed he did, comrades,” added Moses, turning to his friends with an apologetic air. “I didn’t want him to do it, but he jerked part o’ my load suddenly out o’ my hand an’ wouldn’t give it up again; an’, you know, I didn’t dare to make a row, for that would have brought the lash down on both of us. But I didn’t want him to carry so much, an’ him so tired.”
“Tired!” exclaimed the sailor, with a loud laugh. “Why, I warn’t tired a bit. An’, you know, you’d have dropped down, Moses, if I hadn’t helped ye at that time.”
“Well, I confess I was ready to drop,” returned Moses, with a humbled look; “but I would much rather have dropped than have added to your burden. How can you say you wasn’t tired when you had fallen down only five minutes before, an’ groaned heavily when you rose, and your legs trembled so? I could see it!”
To this the seaman’s only reply was the expansion of his huge but handsome mouth, the display of magnificent teeth, the disappearance of both eyes, and a prolonged quiet chuckle.
“Why, what’s the matter with you, Jack?” asked Stevenson.
“Nothin’s the matter wi’ me, old man—’cept—”
Here he indulged in another chuckle.
“Goin’ mad, with over-fatigue,” said Simkin, looking suspiciously at him.
“Ay, that’s it, messmate, clean mad wi’ over-fatigue.”
He wiped his eyes with the hairy back of his hand, for the chuckling, being hearty, had produced a few tears.