Page:The Dark Frigate (Hawes).djvu/168

“Blub-bub-blah!” he yelled. ‘‘I'll eat! I’ll eat!”

They let him go and he rose and ate. Time and again he gasped for water and they laughed; time and again he lagged and the Old One cried, ‘‘Eat on!” When at last he stood miserably in front of the empty dish, the Old One said, ‘‘For a day and a night shalt thou sit in bilboes with a dry throat, which will be a lesson to learn thee two things: first, before cooking a kettle of fish, do thou bear it well in mind to soak out the salt so that the fish be fit for food; and second, by way of common prudence, do thou sample for thyself the dishes that are cooked for the cabin.”

They haled him forward and locked the shackles on his feet and placed beside him a great dish of the fish, that whoever wished might pelt him with it; and there they left him to repent of his folly and forswear drunkenness and whimper for water.

As the weary hours passed, the sun tormented him in his insufferable thirst; but nightfall in a measure brought relief and he nodded in the darkness and fell asleep. Waking, he would rub his head, which sadly throbbed and would seek by gulping to ease his parched throat; and sleeping again, he would dream of great buckets of clear water. The voices that he heard buzzed in his ears as if they were the droning of flies, and hunching himself down in his shackles at one end of the iron bar, he forgot the world and was forgotten, since his fat carcase lay inertly in a black shadow and there was nothing to make a man keep him in mind.

He heard at last a voice saying, ‘‘But nevertheless it becomes you to walk lightly and carefully,” and another replying, "I fear him not, for all his subtle ways. Much that goes on escapes him.”