They glared at each other with fierce mistrust.
“Ah, look! look!” shrieked Canaris suddenly. “The black wretch!” and springing across the raft he flung himself on Bildad and grasped him with both hands savagely by the throat.
Melton and Guy tore him away by main force and there beside the African lay the bag—empty.
Bildad’s lips were full of crumbs, and half a cracker was still clutched in one grimy hand.
“Kill him. Throw him in the river!” shrieked the Greek, who was fairly beside himself with rage and hunger.
“He is out of his mind,” said Guy gravely. “He took them in his delirium. Not one is left;” as he shook the bag in the air.
Sir Arthur made another piteous appeal for food, and Guy took the half cracker from Bildad’s hand and gave it to him.
“None left!” repeated the colonel blankly. “What are we going to do? We’ll starve in two days. I feel now as if I were on fire inside.”
“All our rifles are gone, too,” said Guy suddenly. “Bildad has thrown them overboard. The crafty scoundrel feared we would shoot him for stealing the crackers, and he threw away the guns on purpose. There was method in his madness, after all.”
“The fiend!” hissed Canaris between his teeth. “And it was I who saved his life for this. If I only had known! If I only had left him to perish in the lake!”