I had followed the example of Miss Higglesby-Browne as regards the camp-chair and the book.  What the book was I have not the least idea, but I perused it with an appearance of profound abstraction which I hoped might discourage advances on the part of Captain Magnus.  Also I made sure that the penknife was within instant reach.  Meanwhile my ears, and at cautious intervals my eyes, kept me informed of the movements of our guards.

For a considerable time the two ruffians, lethargic after an enormous breakfast, lay about idly in the shade and smoked.  As I listened to their lazy, fragmentary conversation vast gulfs of mental vacuity seemed to open before me.  I wondered whether after all wicked people were just stupid people—­and then I thought of Aunt Jane—­who was certainly not wicked—­

As the heat increased a voice of lamentation broke from Chris. He was dry—­dry enough to drink up the condemned ocean.  No, he didn’t want spring water, which Cookie obsequiously tendered him; he wanted a drink—­wouldn’t anybody but a fool nigger know that?  There was plenty of the real stuff aboard the schooner, on the other side of the—­adjective—­island.  Why had they, with incredible lack of forethought, brought along nothing but their pocket flasks?  Why hadn’t they sent the adjective nigger back for more?  Where was the bottle or two that had been rooted out last night from the medical stores?  Empty?  Every last drop gone down somebody’s greedy gullet?  The adjectives came thick and fast as Chris hurled the bottle into the bay, where it swam bobbingly upon the ripples.  Captain Magnus agreed with the gist of Chris’s remarks, but deprecated, in a truly philosophical spirit, their unprofitable heat.  There wasn’t any liquor, so what was the good of making an adjective row?  Hadn’t he endured the equivalent of Chris’s present sufferings for weeks?  He was biding his time, he was.  Plenty of drink by and by, plenty of all that makes life soft and easy.  He bet there wouldn’t many hit any higher spots than him.  He bet there was one little girl that would be looked on as lucky, in case she was a good little girl and encouraged him to show his natural kindness.  And I was favored with a blood-curdling leer from across the camp, of which I had put as much as possible between myself and the object of my dread.

But now, like a huge black Ganymede, appeared Cookie, bearing cups and a large stone crock.

“It suhtinly am a fact, Mistah Chris, sah,” said Cookie, “dat dey is a mighty unspirituous fluidity ’bout dis yere spring watah.  Down war I is come from no pussons of de Four Hund’ed ain’t eveh ’customed to partake of such.  But the sassiety I has been in lately round dis yere camp ain’t of de convivulous ordah; ole Cookie had to keep it dark dat he got his li’le drop o’ comfort on de side.  Dis yere’s only home-made stuff, sah.  ’Tain’t what I could offah to a gennelmun if so be I is got the makin’s of a genuwine old-style julep what is de beverage of de fust fam’lies.  But bein’ as it is, it am mighty coolin’, sah, and it got a li’le kick to it—­not much, but jes’ ’bout enough to make a gennelmun feel lak he is one.”