On the seventh day Bodenham says his feet are so bad he can't walk, and Greenhill, with a greedy look at the berries, bids him stay behind. Being in a very weak condition, he takes his companion at his word, and drops off about noon the next day. Gabbett, discovering this defection, however, goes back, and in an hour or so appears, driving the wretched creature before him with blows, as a sheep is driven to the shambles. 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. The ninth sun of their freedom, rising upon sandy and barren hillocks, bristling thick with cruel scrub, sees the six famine-stricken wretches cursing their God, and yet afraid to die. All round is the fruitless, shadeless, shelterless bush. Above, the pitiless heaven. In the distance the remorseless sea. Something terrible must happen. That gray wilderness, arched by gray heaven stooping to gray sea, is a fitting keeper of hideous secrets. Vetch suggests that Oyster Bay cannot be far to the eastward,--the line of ocean is deceitfully close,--and though such a proceeding will take them out of their course, they resolve to make for it. After hobbling five miles they seem no nearer than before, and nigh dead with fatigue and starvation, sink despairingly upon the ground. Vetch thinks Gabbett's eyes have a wolfish glare in them, and instinctively draws off from him. Said Greenhill, in the course of a dismal conversation, "I am so weak that I could eat a piece of a man." On the tenth day Bodenham refuses to stir, and the others, being scarcely able to drag along their limbs, sit on the ground about him. Greenhill, eyeing the prostrate man, said slowly, "I have seen the same done before, boys, and it tasted like pork." Vetch, hearing his savage comrade give utterance to a thought all had secretly cherished, speaks out, crying, "It would be murder to do it; and then perhaps we couldn't eat it." "Oh," said Gabbett, with a grin, "I'll warrant you that; but you must all have a hand in it." Gabbett, Sanders, and Greenhill then go aside, and presently Sanders, coming to the Crow, said, "He consented to act as flogger. He deserves it." "So did Gabbett, for that matter," shudders Vetch. "Ay, but Bodenham's feet are sore," said Sanders, "and 'tis a pity to leave him." Having no fire, they made a little break-wind; and Vetch, half dozing behind this, at about three in the morning hears some one 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 carcass is divided.