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"He'll join us, mate he'll join us!" cried Vetch, fearful of bloodshed. Gabbett uttered a furious oath, and flinging himself on to the prostrate figure, dragged it, head foremost, to the floor. The sudden vertigo had saved Rufus Dawes's life.
With his eyes protruding, and every sinew strained to its uttermost, he was slowly forced round, and he felt Gabbett releasing his grasp, in order to draw back and aim at him an effectual blow.
"You may flog, and welcome, master," said he, "if you'll give me a fig o' tibbacky." Frere laughed. The brutal indifference of the rejoinder suited his humour, and, with a glance at Vickers, he took a small piece of cavendish from the pocket of his pea-jacket, and gave it to the recaptured convict. Gabbett snatched it as a cur snatches at a bone, and thrust it whole into his mouth.
Having no fire, they make a little breakwind; and Vetch, half-dozing behind this at about three in the morning, hears someone cry out "Christ!" and awakes, sweating ice. No one but Gabbett and Greenhill would eat that night. That savage pair, however, make a fire, fling ghastly fragments on the embers, and eat the broil before it is right warm. In the morning the frightful carcase is divided.
From this it grew to anecdote of wreck and adventure, and at last Gabbett said something which made the listener start from his indifferent efforts to slumber, into sudden broad wakefulness. It was the mention of his own name, coupled with that of the woman he had met on the quarter-deck, that roused him. "I saw her speaking to Dawes yesterday," said the giant, with an oath.
Greenhill remonstrates at another mouth being thus forced upon the party, but the giant silences him with a hideous glance. Jemmy Vetch remembers that Greenhill accompanied Gabbett once before, and feels uncomfortable. He gives hint of his suspicions to Sanders, but Sanders only laughs. It is horribly evident that there is an understanding among the three.
To maintain a strong impression on the reader, his touch is occasionally strong and fearless, like that of Kipling. But this object attained, he uses his materials with an almost unnecessary reticence. The episode of the cannibalism of Gabbett and his fellow-convicts is exceptional.
"What's that?" asked Frere, suddenly interested. "The bolter I was telling you about Gabbett, your old friend. He's returned." "How long has he been out?" "Nigh six weeks, sir," said the constable, touching his cap. "Gad, he's had a narrow squeak for it, I'll be bound. I should like to see him." "He's down at the sheds," said the ready Troke "a 'good conduct' burglar.
The names of these eight were Gabbett, Vetch, Bodenham, Cornelius, Greenhill, Sanders, called the "Moocher", Cox, and Travers. The leading spirits were Vetch and Gabbett, who, with profound reverence, requested the "Dandy" to join.
Over and over they rolled, the bewildered sentry not daring to fire, until the ship's side brought them up with a violent jerk, and Frere realized that Gabbett was below him. Pressing with all the might of his muscles, he strove to resist the leverage which the giant was applying to turn him over, but he might as well have pushed against a stone wall.
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