“A nice navigator you are, ain’t you, Spiller?  Do you know where you are now?” asked Brown.

“Well, I must say there seems to be some mistake,” said Spiller.  “I came along when I heard the coo-ee, and found myself here.  It is most unaccountable.  Here is where we camped last night, sure enough.  It is most surprising.”

“Yes, it is surprising,” said Smith.  “You know the compass, don’t you, you conceited little beggar.  You can box it and make a bee-line for Western Port, can’t you?  Here you have been circussing us round the country, nobody knows where, until we have not a morsel of food left; but if I am to be starved to death through you, you miserable little hound, I am not going to leave you alive.  What do you say, mates?  Let us kill him and eat him.  I’ll do the job myself if nobody else likes it.  I say nothing could be fairer.”

Sparrow, one of the Irishmen, spoke.  He was a spare man, six feet high, had a long thin face, a prominent nose, sloping shoulders, mild blue eyes, and a most gentle voice.  I knew him after he returned to Gippsland and settled there.  He was averse to quarrelling and fighting; and, to enable him to lead a peaceable life, he carried a short riding whip with a hammer handle, and kept the lash twisted round his hand.  He was a conscientious man too, and had a strong moral objection to the proposal of killing and eating Spiller; but he did not want to offend the company, and he made his refusal as mild as possible.

“It’s a think I wouldn’t like to quarrel about with no man,” he said, “and the Lord knows I am as hungry as any of you; and if we die through this misleading little chap I couldn’t say but he would be guilty of murdering us, and we might be justified in making use of what little there is of him.  But for my part I couldn’t take my share of the meat—­not to-day at any rate, because you may disremember it’s Friday, and it’s agen the laws of the Church to ate meat this day.  So I’d propose that we wait till to-morrow, and if we grow very wake with the hunger, we can make use of the dog to stay our stomachs a little while longer, and something better may turn up in the meantime.”

“Is it to cook my dog Watch you mean?” asked Crow. (Here Watch went to his master, and lay down at his feet, looking up in his face and patting the ground with his tail.) “I tell you what it is, Sparrow, you are not going to ate my dog.  What has the poor fellow done to you, I’d like to know?  You may cook Spiller if you like, to-day or to-morrow, it’s all the same to me—­and I grant he well deserves it —­but if you meddle with Watch you’ll have to deal with me.”

“It’s no use going on this way, mates,” said Brown.  “We might as well be moving while we have strength enough to do so.  Come along.”

The men began to rise to their feet.  Macnamara suddenly snatched Spiller’s gun, and fired off both barrels; he then said, “Now hand over your shot and powder.”  Spiller, half scared to death, handed them over.