“Ay, Bob, I’m here—at least, all o’ me that’s left. I confess to you that I do feel a queer sensation, as if the one half of my head were absent and the other half a-wanting, while the brain lies exposed to the atmosphere. But I suppose that’s impossible.”
“Where are we, Jack?”
“We’re in an outhouse, in the hands of planters; so I made out by what I heard them say when I got my senses back; but I’ve no notion of what part o’ the world we’re in. Moreover, I don’t care. A man with only one leg, no head, and an exposed brain, isn’t worth caring about. I don’t care for him—not a button.”
“Oh, Jack, dear, don’t speak like that—I can’t stand it.”
“You’re lying down, ain’t you?” inquired Jack.
“Yes.”
“Then how d’you know whether you can stand it or not?”
I was so overcome, and, to say the truth, surprised, at my companion’s recklessness, that I could not reply. I lay motionless on the hard ground, meditating on our forlorn situation, when my thoughts were interrupted by the grating sound of a key turning in a lock. The door of the hut opened, and four men entered, each bearing a torch, which cast a brilliant glare over the hovel in which we were confined. There was almost nothing to be seen in the place. It was quite empty. The only peculiar thing that I observed about it was a thick post, with iron hooks fixed in it, which rose from the centre of the floor to the rafters, against which it was nailed. There were also a few strange-looking implements hanging round the walls, but I could not at first make out what these were intended for. I now perceived that Jack and I were chained to the wall.
Going to the four corners of the apartment, the four men placed their four torches in four stands that seemed made for the purpose, and then, approaching us, ranged themselves in a row before us. Two of them I recognised as being the men we had first seen in the swamp; the other two were strangers.
“So, my bucks,” began one of the former,—a hideous-looking man, whose personal appearance was by no means improved by a closed eye, a flattened nose, and a swelled cheek, the result of Jack’s first flourish of his wooden leg,—“so, we’ve got you, have we? The hounds have got you, eh?”