"
"Didn't I try to speak, sir? Didn't you cut me off, sir?"
Roger looked at him gravely. Although the fellow flinched, he was telling
the truth. In justice we had to admit that Roger had given him no hearing.
"Ay, and that skinny old money-chaser tried to throttle me," he continued.
"Falk lay off that island only because we needed water. Ay, we all knew we
needed it--Falk and all of us. But them murderin' natives was after our
heart's blood whenever we goes ashore, just because Chips and Kipping
drills a few bullet-holes in some of 'em. I knew what Falk was after when
he asks you for water, sir. The scuttlebutts with water in 'em was on deck
handy, and most of them below was empty where you wa'n't likely to trouble
'em for a while yet. He see how't would work out. Wasn't I going to tell
you, even though he killed me for it, until you cut me off and that 'un
choked me? It helps take the soreness--it--I tried to tell you, sir."
In petty spite, the fellow had committed himself, along with the rest of
us, to privation at the very least. Yet he had a defense of a kind,
contemptible though it was, and Roger let him go.
It was a weary voyage; but all things have an end, and in ten days we had
left Helen Shoal astern.
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