the splashing sound it made as it came to the bottom. [Sidenote: The Enemy Retreat] All this time the men had been looking on in a dazed and silly way, not one of them offering to help Hoggett to save the bridge they had been at such pains to make; indeed, the moment it fell into the chasm I observed Wabberley very gently slink away towards the wood. It was always a great cause of wonderment to me that this big wind-bag of a man was tolerated, let alone made a comrade of, by Hoggett, who was neither a coward nor a wind-bag, except when he was mouthing futile threats against me and Billy. But I have lived a good many years since then, and have seen other instances of the same sort. However, to keep to my story, the men stood for a little while, unable to say a word to the ravings of Hoggett, who, between the pain of his wound and the bitter disappointment at his rebuff, was as near frenzy as ever I saw a man; and then, seeing, I suppose, that nothing was to be gained by staying, they presently departed, Hoggett last of them all, walking very slowly and with a limp. I saw one or two of the men turn back to speak to him, but he waved his arms and roared at them, so that they very soon faced about and left him to himself; in some circumstances would-be sympathizers only aggravate a man's trouble. So Hoggett went, baffled and solitary, never turning aside until he came to the edge of the wood, and then the passion that he had been brooding on broke all bounds, and he wheeled about suddenly, and shook his fist most vehemently at us, shouting words which in the distance I could not catch. I think we should have laughed at this exhibition of impotent wrath if he had done it before; but there was something, I know not what, strangely moving in the spectacle of this big rough man walking alone, unable to endure the speech, or even the presence, of his friends, and then at last overcome by the force of the feelings working within him. Neither Billy nor I spoke for a full minute after he had vanished into the wood, and then Billy struck a new note. "Chick's skinnier than ever," says he. "Wabberley isn't," I said. "Not so far as you can see," says Billy; "but I warrant he is if you could see him with his clothes off. Them big men take a lot of thinning." "You think they are hungry, then?" said I. "I don't think; I'd take my davy on it," says he. "They've eat all our provender long ago, you may be sure, and all the pigs except our two, and it ain't the fish season, nor yet the bread-fruit; and if we wait here a bit longer they'll just be skellingtons, and all we shall have to do will be to bury 'em."