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than he is. He tried to speak but succeeded only in running his tongue over his lips, which needed it if they were as dry as they were blue.

“Come, come, we get no place!” “Yacob! Yacob!” they cried at the sound of his voice, ‘‘Up on thy feet, Yacob!”

He rose and stood in his corner. His long hair was brushed back from a forehead so high that it reached to a great lump on the crown of his head. His brows were knit with intense earnestness. His big nose and curled lips and small chin were set in what might have seemed in another place and another time scholarly intentness. They did him honour by waiting in silence for his words.

“This bickering and jangling brings us no place. Shall we go on or shall we go back? Shall we go north or shall we go south? Those are questions we must answer. Now I will tell you. If we go on, we shall find little fishing ships, with fish and no chinks, and we shall get tired of eating fish. If we go back in this fine ship that God in his goodness hath given us, we shall hang. We may yet go back to Mother Taylor, but we must go back in another ship. You know why. Now, brave hearts, if we go on to New England it shall profit us nothing. For the New-English are poor. They live in little huts. The savages come down out of the woods and kill. Whether there be lions I do not know and I do not care; those savages I have seen and they are a very ugly sight. The English plantations are cold in winter like the devil. They are poor. The English, they play with poverty.

“And if we go south? Ah-h-h! There are the Spains! They have sun and warmth and fruits and spices! They