"Poor fellow!" said Moses to Molloy, "I don't wonder you are tired, for you not only carried twice as much as any of us, but you took part of _my_ load. Indeed he did, comrades," added Moses, turning to his friends with an apologetic air. "I didn't want him to do it, but he jerked part o' my load suddenly out o' my hand an' wouldn't give it up again; an', you know, I didn't dare to make a row, for that would have brought the lash down on both of us. But I didn't want him to carry so much, an' him so tired." "Tired!" exclaimed the sailor, with a loud laugh. "Why, I warn't tired a bit. An', you know, you'd have dropped down, Moses, if I hadn't helped ye at that time." "Well, I confess I _was_ ready to drop," returned Moses, with a humbled look; "but I would much rather have dropped than have added to your burden. How can you say you wasn't tired when you had fallen down only five minutes before, an' groaned heavily when you rose, and your legs trembled so? I could _see_ it!" To this the seaman's only reply was the expansion of his huge but handsome mouth, the display of magnificent teeth, the disappearance of both eyes, and a prolonged quiet chuckle. "Why, what's the matter with you, Jack?" asked Stevenson. "Nothin's the matter wi' me, old man--'cept--" Here he indulged in another chuckle. "Goin' mad, with over-fatigue," said Simkin, looking suspiciously at him. "Ay, that's it, messmate, clean mad wi' over-fatigue." He wiped his eyes with the hairy back of his hand, for the chuckling, being hearty, had produced a few tears. "No, but really, Jack, what is it you're laughing at?" asked Armstrong. "If there _is_ a joke you might as well let us have the benefit of laughing along wi' you, for we stand much in need of something to cheer us here." "Well, Billy boy, I may as well make a clean breast of it," said Molloy, raising himself on one elbow and becoming grave. "I do confess to feelin' raither ashamed o' myself, but you mustn't be hard on me, lads, for circumstances alters cases, you know, as Solomon said--leastwise if it warn't him it was Job or somebody else. The fact is, I've bin shammin', mates!" "Shamming!" "Ay, shammin' _weak_. Purtendin' that I was shaky on the legs, an' so not quite up to the cargo they were puttin' aboard o' me." "If what you've been doing means shamming _weak_, I'd like to see you coming out _strong_," observed Miles, with a short laugh. "Well, p'r'aps you'll see that too some day," returned the sailor, with an amiable look. "But do you really mean that all that groaning--which I confess to have been surprised at--was mere pretence?" "All sham. Downright sneakin'!" said Molloy. "The short an' the long of it is, that I see'd from the first the on'y way to humbug them yellow-faced baboons was to circumwent 'em. So I set to work at the wery beginnin'." "Ah, by takin' a header," said Simkin, "into one o' their bread-baskets!"