‘We’ve got hib and we’ll keep hib,’ said Abram, pulling off the captain’s cap and wiping his brow with the captain’s pocket-handkerchief, and straddling in front of Tom, a massive, terrible figure. ‘Butler, you was right. I’ve beed turdi’g it over. You card’t be singleadded. Suppose you should die. We’d let hib understa’d what betrayal ’ud cost. But what’s the good of getti’g excited? Dever lose your tepper. If I couldn’t keep by tepper’--and here he spoke with his eyes fixed on me--‘what ’u’d be by reputatiod as a public bad?’ CHAPTER XXXV SHE LISTENS TO THE CONVICTS DEBATING Tom and the prize-fighter talked together whilst Mr. Bates got the boats alongside and superintended the stowage of provisions and water in them. I went into the shadow of the awning to get out of the heat of the sun and to remove myself from Tom, that we might not be seen together constantly. Some of the ringleaders, as I must term the fellows whom the convicts undoubtedly regarded as heads or chiefs under Tom or Abram, joined my sweetheart and the prize-fighter, and the air speedily hummed with the eager, animated talk of the crowd. Will joined me, and we watched the long-boat. She had gone about a mile, and they had hoisted the sail for the shelter of its shadow. It hung like a sheet of silver from its yard, without a stir, so smooth was the sea, so still the air. The soldiers continued to sweep the boat along; the oars glanced like hairs of silver as they rose and fell. Will went to the binnacle to judge of the course the boat was making. The scoundrel seaman who grasped the wheel growled out with a low, coarse laugh and in a cursing voice some remark I did not catch. ‘You wouldn’t have said that yesterday,’ exclaimed Will, and came back to me without taking further notice of the miscreant. ‘They are heading due west,’ said he. ‘I don’t suppose they will make up their minds till the other boats join them.’ ‘What is the nearest land?’ ‘The Brazilian coast. But the nearest is a long way off. There’s but a small chance for them outside of being picked up. And yet what a lump of a boat she is compared with the gig! When is she to be provisioned? And when are we to get away? And when we’ve got away, what’s going to happen? Good angels, I wish we were both at Stepney!’ ‘Leave everything to Tom,’ said I, ‘and do as he tells you.’