"Fo' de Lawd's sake, Miss Jinny, spill it out! It am mighty
powerful dope--it done fumented twice as long as befo'--it am boun'
to give dat trash de blind-staggahs sho'tly!"

Instantly I understood, and a thrill of relief and of hope
inexpressible shot through me. I raised to the troubled black face
a glance which I trust was eloquent--it must needs have been to
express the thankfulness I felt. Cookie responded with a solemn
and convulsive wink--and I put the cup to my lips and after a brief
parade of drinking passed it back to Cookie, spilling the contents
on the ground en route.

Cookie retired with his tray in his most impressive cake-walk
fashion, and in passing announced to Captain Magnus that "Miss
Jinny say she mos' suhtinly am obligated to de gennelmun to' de
refreshment of dis yere acidulous beverage." Which bare-faced
mendacity provoked a loud roar of amusement from the sentinels, who
were still sampling the cooling contents of the stone crock.

"Learning to like what I do already, hey?" guffawed the captain,
and he called on Chris to drain another cup with him to the lady of
his choice.

I have believed since that dragging, interminable time which I now
lived through, that complete despair, where you rest quite finally
on bedrock and have nothing to dread in the way of further tumbles,
must be a much happier state than the dreadful one of oscillating
between hope and fear. For a leaden-footed eternity, it seemed to
me, I oscillated, longing for, yet dreading, the signs that
Cookie's powerful dope had begun to work upon our guards--for might
not the first symptoms be quite different from the anticipated
blind staggers? Fancy a murderous maniac pair reeling about the
clearing, with death-vomiting revolvers and gleaming knives!

And then suddenly time, which had dragged so slowly, appeared to
gallop, and the morning to be fleeing past, so that every wave that
broke upon the beach was the footfalls of the returning pirates.
Long, long before that thirsty, garrulous pair grew still and
torpid their companions must return--

And I saw Cookie, his stratagem discovered, dangling from a
convenient tree.

Gradually the rough disjointed talk of the sailors began to
languish. Covertly watching, I saw that Chris's head had begun to
droop. His body, propped comfortably against a tree, sagged a
little. The hand that held the cup was lifted, stretched out in
the direction of the enticing jar, then forg