“Come along, Cuff,” he said in a hearty voice, sitting down to dinner, “let’s grub together an’ be thankful for small mercies, anyhow. Wotever turns up, you and I shall go halves and stick by one another to the last. Not that I have any doubts of Big Chief, Cuffy; you mustn’t suppose that; but then, you see, he ain’t the only chief in the island, and if all the rest was to go agin him, he couldn’t do much to save us.”
The dog of course replied in its usual facetious manner with eyes and tail, and sat down with its ears cocked and its head turned expectantly on one side, while the sailor removed the palm-leaf covering of the basket which contained the provisions sent to him.
“Wot have we here, Cuffy?” he said soliloquising and looking earnestly in; “let me see; bit of baked pig—good, Cuff, good; that’s the stuff to make us fat. Wot next? Roast fish—that’s not bad, Cuff—not bad, though hardly equal to the pig. Here we have a leaf full of plantains and another of yams,—excellent grub that, my doggie, nothing could be better. What’s this? Cocoanut full of its own milk—the best o’ drink; ‘it cheers’—as the old song, or the old poet says—‘but it don’t inebriate;’ that wos said in regard to tea, you know, but it holds good in respect of cocoanut milk, and it’s far better than grog, Cuffy; far better, though you can’t know nothin’ about that, but you may take my word for it; happy is the man as drinks nothin’ stronger than cocoanut milk or tea. Hallo! wot’s this—plums? Why, doggie, they’re oncommon good to us to-day. I wonder wot’s up. I say—” Jarwin paused as he drew the last dish out of the prolific basket, and looked earnestly at his dog while he laid it down, “I say, what if they should have taken it into their heads to fatten us up before killin’ us? That’s not a wery agreeable notion, is it, eh?”
Apparently Cuffy was of the same opinion, for he did not wag even the point of his tail, and there was something dubious in the glance of his eye as he waited for more.
“Well, well, it ain’t no use surmisin’,” observed the seaman, with another sigh, “wot we’ve got for to do just now is to eat our wittles an’ hope for the best. Here you are, Cuff—catch!”
Throwing a lump of baked pig to his dog, the worthy man fell to with a keen appetite, and gave himself no further anxiety as to the probable or possible events of the future.
Dinner concluded, he would fain have gone out for a ramble on the shore—as he had been wont to do in time past—but his gaoler forbade him to quit the hut. He was therefore about to console himself with a siesta, when an unexpected order came from Big Chief, requiring his immediate attendance in the royal hut. Jarwin at once obeyed the mandate, and in a few minutes stood before his master, who was seated on a raised couch, enjoying a cup of cocoanut milk.
“I have send for you,” began Big Chief with solemnity, “to have a palaver. Sit down, you Breetish tar.”
“All right, old chap,” replied Jarwin, seating himself on a stool opposite to his master. “Wot is it to be about?”
“Jowin,” rejoined Big Chief, with deepening gravity, “you’s bin well treated here.”