"Well, Ben, what's this? Are you wounded?"
It was Roger, and when he saw with whom I was talking he smiled.
"Well, Bennie," he cried, "so we've got a prisoner, have we?"
"No, sir," whimpered the man from Boston, "not a prisoner. I come over, I
did."
"You what?"
"I come over--to your side, sir."
"How about it, Ben?"
"Why, so he says. We were having a pretty hard wrestling match, but he says
it was to cover up his escape from the other party."
"How was I to get away, sir, if I didn't have a subterfoog," the prisoner
interposed eagerly. "I _had_ to wrastle. If I hadn't have, they'd 'a' shot
me down as sure as duff on Sunday."
For my own part I was not yet convinced of his good faith. He had gripped
my throat quite too vindictively. To this very day, when I close my eyes I
can feel his hard fingers clenched about my windpipe and his knees forcing
my arms down on the bloody deck. He had let me go, too, only when we both
knew that Captain Falk and his men had put off from the ship. It seemed
very much as if he were trying to make the best of a bad bargain. But if,
on the other hand, he was entirely sincere in his protestations, it might
well be true that he did not dare come over openly to our side.
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