"There!" he cried, heaving a deep, long-drawn sigh, "we've put a
considerable breadth of water between us and these black rascals, so
now we'll have a hearty supper and a sound sleep."
"Heat, hear!" cried Peterkin. "Nobly spoken, Jack.--Hand me a drop of
water, Ralph.--Why, girl, what's wrong with you? You look just like a
black owl blinking in the sunshine."
Avatea smiled. "I sleepy," she said; and as if to prove the truth of
this, she laid her head on the edge of the canoe and fell fast asleep.
"That's uncommon sharp practice," said Peterkin with a broad grin.
"Don't you think we should awake her to make her eat something first?
Or perhaps," he added, with a grave, meditative look--"perhaps we might
put some food in her mouth, which is so elegantly open at the present
moment, and see if she'd swallow it while asleep. If so, Ralph, you
might come round to the front here and feed her quietly, while Jack and
I are tucking into the victuals. It would be a monstrous economy of
time."
I could not help smiling at Peterkin's idea, which indeed, when I
pondered it, seemed remarkably good in theory; nevertheless I declined
to put it in practice, being fearful of the result should the victual
chance to go down the wrong throat. But on suggesting this to Peterkin,
he exclaimed--
"Down the wrong throat, man! why, a fellow with half an eye might see
that if it went down Avatea's throat it could not go down the wrong
throat!--unless, indeed, you have all of a sudden become inordinately
selfish, and think that all the throats in the world are wrong ones
except your own.
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