er.

"Can't you? What's the reason you can't?" growled Howe.

"I'm almost choked."

"So am I," added several others.

"Are you going to back out?" demanded the leader.

"Rather than perish with thirst, I am," answered Herman.

"What's the use? All the rest of the fellows have deserted us," added
Ibbotson. "Even Raymond is sporting a yellow ribbon, and is as jolly as
a lord now."

"We can't make anything by it," said Monroe. "I move you we back out,
and get a drink of water. All hands will be called at eight bells, I
think, to put on more sail."

"No, no! Don't back out," interposed Howe. "We haven't made ourselves
felt yet."

"That's so," groaned Herman. "No one takes any notice of us. Even
those fellows that went up last won't speak to us, not even to answer a
civil question. The principal evidently regards us with perfect
contempt. I go in for doing something, or backing out. As it is, we are
making a milk-and-water affair of it. We are starved and choked. That's
all we have to show for what we have done."

"Why don't you preach, and say, 'The way of the transgressor is hard,'
or something of that sort, which is original," snarled Howe.

"I should judge from your talk that you did not feel very good," added
Herman.

"I don't; I'm as dry as any of you, but I have no idea of backing out."

"What are you going to do? What's to be the end of this?" demanded
Ibbotson. "I've got enough of it."

"That seems to be the general opinion," continued Herman.

"Where's Little?" demanded Howe, who could not help realizing that the
fortunes of the last of the mutineers were becoming desperate, and that
it was not an easy thing to contend against such enemies as hunger and
thirst. "I shall not give it up so. Let us do something. Let us make
ourselves felt, even if we are hanged for it."

"What can we do?" inquired Herman, earnestly. "We are caged here like a
lot of donkeys, and I have had enough of it."

"Will you hold on for a couple of hours longer, fellows?" persisted
Howe.

"I will hold on till the boatswain calls all hands, and not an instant
longer," replied Herman. "My tongue feels as though it were cracking
with thirst."

Howe rushed out of the room to find Little, who was the man of
expedients for the runaways. He found him in an adjoining room, and
stated the case to him. The little villain was as uncomfortable and
unhappy as the rest of the mutineers, and, to the surprise of Howe,
counselled yieldi