Next morning the Halfbreed caught a minnow. We divided it into three and ate it raw. Later on he found some water-lice under a stone. We tried to cook them, but they did not help us much. Then, as night fell once more, a thought came into our minds and stuck there. It was a hidden thought, and yet it grew and grew. As we sat round in a circle we looked into each other's faces, and there we read the same revolting thought. Yet did it not seem so revolting after all. It was as if the spirit of the dead man was urging us to this thing, so insistent did the thought become. It was our only hope of life. It meant strength again, strength and energy to make a raft and float us down the river. Oh, if only—but, no! We could not do it. Better, a hundred times better, die.
Yet life was sweet, and for twenty-three days we had starved. Here was a chance to live, with the dead man whispering in our ears to do it. You who have never starved a day in your lives, would you blame us? Life is sweet to you, too. What would you have done? The dead man was urging us, and life was sweet.
But we struggled, God knows we struggled. We did not give in without agony. In our hopeless, staring eyes there was the anguish of the great temptation. We looked in each other's death's-head faces. We clasped skeleton hands round our rickety knees, and swayed as we tried to sit upright. Vermin crawled over us in our weakness. We were half-crazy, and muttered in our beards.
It was the Halfbreed who spoke, and his voice was just a whisper:
"It's our only chance, boys, and we've promised him. God forgive me, but I've a wife and children, and I'm a-goin' to do it."
He was too weak to rise, and with his knife in his mouth he crawled to the body.
It was ready, but we had not eaten. We waited and waited, hoping against hope. Then, as we waited, God was merciful to us. He saved us from this thing.
"Say, I guess I've got a pipe-dream, but I think I see two men coming downstream on a raft."
"No, it's no dream," I said; "two men."