"
"It does look serious," Harriwell admitted, "but we'll come through it
all right. What the sanguinary niggers need is a shaking up. Will you
gentlemen please bring your rifles to dinner, and will you, Mr. Brown,
kindly prepare forty or fifty sticks of dynamite. Make the fuses good
and short. We'll give them a lesson. And now, gentlemen, dinner is
served."
One thing that Bertie detested was rice and curry, so it happened that
he alone partook of an inviting omelet. He had quite finished his
plate, when Harriwell helped himself to the omelet. One mouthful, he
tasted, then spat out vociferously.
"That's the second time," McTavish announced ominously.
Harriwell was still hawking and spitting.
"Second time, what?" Bertie quavered.
"Poison," was the answer. "That cook will be hanged yet."
"That's the way the bookkeeper went out at Cape Marsh," Brown spoke up.
"Died horribly. They said on the _Jessie_ that they heard him
screaming three miles away."
"I'll put the cook in irons," sputtered Harriwell. "Fortunately we
discovered it in time."
Bertie sat paralysed. There was no color in his face. He attempted to
speak, but only an inarticulate gurgle resulted.
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