And then they fell a-talking of the eight or nine men they had left on what they called their island, and I judged from their discourse that provisions being short with them, these twelve had come away to discover a more plentiful land, having promised, if they found one, to return and fetch their shipmates. Pumfrey reminded them of their promise, adding that the men would certainly starve if they were not brought off, whereupon Hoggett declared with an oath that he for one was not going to tug an oar for twenty miles in a leaky boat, to bring off a lot of useless blockheads who would soon eat them out of house and home. We pricked up our ears at this, Billy and me, hearing for the first time that our visitors had made up their minds to abide with us, and Billy ground his teeth, and whispered that we should have to fight 'em. One of the men--I think it was Wabberley--asked what about the mountain? and said he didn't like the notion of living where he might be boiled or roasted any day. At this Hoggett made a mock of him. "Ain't it years since we left they boys here?" he said. "Does it look like boiling or roasting, 'cept for pigs? These here burning mountains ain't always a-working, that's plain, and this one here may be asleep for fifty years to come." And then they ended their discourse for a time, devoting themselves to the roast pork and the yams of which they had deprived our pigs, sighing also very heavily for beer; and finding no cocoa-nuts handy for quenching their thirst, and being too lazy to fetch any (besides, it was dark), two of them went with pots in their hands to the lake, on which there was a very pretty reflection of their fire, and brought them back full of water. Billy chuckled so much at this that I was afraid he would be heard; but I was amused too, for there having been no rains lately, we knew what the effect of drinking the water would be; and, indeed, the next night we heard the men condoling with one another, and it was plain that when they were seized in the middle of the night with griping pains, they believed one and all that they were poisoned.