Pale, shaky, dumb, pitiful? Why, they weren't any better than
so many dead men. It was very uncomfortable. Of course, I thought
they would appeal to me to keep mum, and then we would shake hands,
and take a drink all round, and laugh it off, and there an end.
But no; you see I was an unknown person, among a cruelly oppressed
and suspicious people, a people always accustomed to having advantage
taken of their helplessness, and never expecting just or kind
treatment from any but their own families and very closest intimates.
Appeal to _me_ to be gentle, to be fair, to be generous? Of course,
they wanted to, but they couldn't dare.
CHAPTER XXXIV
THE YANKEE AND THE KING SOLD AS SLAVES
Well, what had I better do? Nothing in a hurry, sure. I must
get up a diversion; anything to employ me while I could think,
and while these poor fellows could have a chance to come to life
again. There sat Marco, petrified in the act of trying to get
the hang of his miller-gun--turned to stone, just in the attitude
he was in when my pile-driver fell, the toy still gripped in his
unconscious fingers.
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