"Why, pigs that are raised down our way," said he, "have a different tone of voice in expressing themselves. They don't bark."
"Bark!" I exclaimed, as light began to dawn upon me, while some of my companions already began to look a little qualmish. "You don't mean to say that—"
"I don't mean to say anything," returned the cooper. "Come outside and see the sacrificial altar, and its trimmings."
We followed him a short distance back from the house till he halted, and pointed significantly to an ensanguined block of wood, near which lay four sets of paws, and four heads, unmistakably canine, corresponding in number to the four "roast pigs" at the banquet.
"I acknowledge the corn," said I. "I suppose if I had known the fact before dinner, I shouldn't have relished it, but it is too late to repent."
"But you might say," said one of boys from the Leonidas, unwilling yet to admit that he had been sold, "that we don't know what animals we had for dinner."
"It needs no naturalist to tell us what animals have suffered at the block;" said I, laughing. "We may as well face the music, for there's hardly 'a loop to hang a doubt upon.' And, as another link in the chain of evidence, I now recollect that those pigs had been decapitated before they were served up, though I hadn't thought of it before. I never knew that these people were in the habit of eating dogs."
"Yes, I could have told you that," said the cooper, "that is to say, as regards another island of this group. I know they do at Ascension, and they prefer them to pigs."
"Well," said I, "I suppose all of us can now testify that they are as good as pigs, if eaten with a sauce of ignorance."