Cook, haul in
that boat and put half a hundredweight of ship's bread and four buckets of
water in it. That'll keep 'em for a while."
"You ain't gwine to feed dat yeh Kipping, sah, is you?"
"Yes."
The cook turned in silence to do Roger's bidding.
Twice the man from Boston started forward as if to speak. The motion was so
slight that it almost escaped me, but the second time I was sure that I
really had detected such an impulse, and at the same moment I perceived
that Falk, whose fingers were twitching nervously, was shooting an angry
glance at him. This byplay to a considerable extent distracted my
attention; but when the fellow finally did get up courage to speak, I saw
that the eyes of every man in Falk's boat were on him and that Kipping had
clenched both fists.
"Stop!" the man from Boston cried. "Stop!" He stepped toward Roger with one
hand raised.
Roger soberly turned on him. "Be still," he said.
"But, sir--"
"Be still!"
"But, sir, there ain't no--"
Certainly as far as we could see, the man's feverish persistence was arrant
insubordination. What Roger would have done we had no time to learn, for
Blodgett, bursting with zeal for our common cause, grasped him by the
throat and choked his words into a gurgle.
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