"Don't a flag of truce give us no protection?" Kipping asked in that
accursedly mild voice--I could not hear it without thinking of poor Bill
Hayden, and to the others, they told me later, it brought the same bitter
memory.
"How long since Cap'n Falk's ol' unde' shirt done be a p'tection?" muttered
the cook grimly.
"Yes, laugh! Laugh, you black baboon! Laugh, you silly little fool,
Lathrop!" Falk yelled. "I'll have you laughing another time one of these
days. Give way men! We'll have out their haslets yet."
A hundred feet from the ship, the men rested on their oars, and Falk put on
a very different manner. "Roger Hamlin," he cried, "you ain't going to send
us away, are you?"
I was astounded. As long as I had known Falk, I had never realized how many
different faces the man could assume at the shortest notice. But Roger
seemed not at all surprised. "Yes," he said, shortly, "we're going to send
you away, you black-hearted scoundrel."
"Good God! We'll perish!"
Although obvious retorts were many, Roger made no reply.
Now Kipping spoke up mildly and innocently:--
"What'll we do? We can't land--the Malays was waiting for us on shore with
knives, all ready to cut our throats.
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