Another dive into the frock brought to view some four or five yards of
calico print, whose tasteful pattern was rather disfigured by the
yellow stains of the tobacco with which it had been brought in contact.
In drawing this calico slowly from his bosom inch by inch, Toby
reminded me of a juggler performing the feat of the endless ribbon. The
next cast was a small one, being a sailor’s little “ditty bag,”
containing needles, thread, and other sewing utensils; then came a
razor-case, followed by two or three separate plugs of negro-head,
which were fished up from the bottom of the now empty receptacle. These
various matters being inspected, I produced a few things which I had
myself brought.
As might have been anticipated from the state of my companion’s edible
supplies, I found my own in a deplorable condition, and diminished to a
quantity that would not have formed half a dozen mouthfuls for a hungry
man who was partial enough to tobacco not to mind swallowing it. A few
morsels of bread, with a fathom or two of white cotton cloth, and
several pounds of choice pigtail, composed the extent of my
possessions.
Our joint stock of miscellaneous articles were now made up into a
compact bundle, which it was agreed we should carry alternately. But
the sorry remains of the biscuit were not to be disposed of so
summarily: the precarious circumstances in which we were placed made us
regard them as something on which very probably depended the fate of
our adventure. After a brief discussion, in which we both of us
expressed our resolution of not descending into the bay until the
ship’s departure, I suggested to my companion that little of it as
there was, we should divide the bread into six equal portions, each of
which should be a day’s allowance for both of us. This proposition he
assented to; so I took the silk kerchief from my neck, and cutting it
with my knife into half a dozen equal pieces, proceeded to make an
exact division.
At first, Toby, with a degree of fastidiousness that seemed to me
ill-timed, was for picking out the minute particles of tobacco with
which the spongy mass was mixed; but against this proceeding I
protested, as by such an operation we must have greatly diminished its
quantity.
When the division was accomplished, we found that a day’s allowance for
the two was not a great deal more than what a table-spoon might hold.
Each separate portion we immediately rolled up in the bit of silk
prepared for it, and joining them all together into a small package, I
committed them, with solemn injunctions of fidelity, to the custody of
Toby. For the remainder of that day we resolved to fast, as we had been
fortified by a breakfast in the morning; and now starting again to our
feet, we looked about us for a shelter during the night, which, from
the appearance of the heavens, promised to be a dark and tempestuous
one.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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