ance to Chris's aunt a remarkable coincidence and an
opportunity for appealing to his better self which should be
improved. She wanted to improve it by untying his hands, because
he had sprained his wrist in his childhood and it was sensitive.
He had sprained it in rescuing a little companion from drowning,
the child of a drunkard who had unfeelingly thrown his offspring
down a well. This episode had been an example to Chris which had
kept him from drinking all his life, until he had fallen into his
present rough company.

Aunt Jane took it very hard that the Scotchman seemed quite
unfeeling about Chris's wrist. She said it seemed very strange to
her in a man who had so recently known the sorrows of captivity
himself. She said she supposed even suffering would not soften
some natures.

As to Magnus, his state of sullen fury made him indifferent even to
threats of punishment. He swore with a determination and fluency
worthy of a better cause. For myself, I could not endure his
neighborhood. It seemed to me I could not live through the days
that must intervene before the arrival of the _Rufus Smith_ in the
constant presence of this wretch.

More than all, it made Dugald and Cuthbert unwilling to leave the
camp together. There was always the possibility that the two
ruffians might find means to free themselves, and, with none but
Cookie and the women present, to obtain control of the firearms and
the camp. For the negro, once the men were free, could not surely
be depended on to face them. Loyal he was, and valiant in his
fashion, but old and with the habit of submission. One did not see
him standing up for long before two berserker-mad ruffians.

What to do with the pirates continued for a day and a night a
knotty problem.

It was Cuthbert Vane who solved it, and with the simplicity of
genius.

"Why not send 'em down to their chums the way we do the eats?" he
asked.

It seemed at first incredibly fantastic, but the more you thought
of it the more practical it grew. It was characteristic of
Cuthbert not to see it as fantastic. For him the sharp edges of
fact were never shaded off into the dim and nebulous. Cuthbert,
when he saw things at all, saw them steadily and whole. He would
let down the writhing, swearing Magnus over the cliff as tranquilly
as he let down loaves of bread, aware merely of its needing more
muscular effort. Only he would take immense care not to hurt him.

Dire outcries gree