Let him have it out," implored Foe, between his sharp intakes of
breath.
"I am glad you excepted _me_," burst out Farrell. "You'll trouble
_me_ again fast enough: or, rather, I'll trouble _you_--to the end of
your dirty life. Are you shamming sick, there, you Foe?"
"You know that he is not," said Jimmy, holding back my arm.
"Tell your story, and clear."
"My story?" echoed Farrell in a bewildered way. "What's my story
more than what you know, it seems? What's my story more than that,
after sharing hell for days in an open boat, and solitude on that
awful island, this man left me--choosing when I was sick and sorry:
left me to hell and solitude together--left me to it, cold-blooded,
when I was too weak to crawl--left me, in his cursed grudge, when he
could have saved two as easy as one? Has he told you that,
gentlemen?"
"He told me quite faithfully," said I. "We--Mr. Collingwood and I--
both know it."
"Ay," Farrell retorted, "but neither you nor your Mr. Collingwood,
when you say that, understands a bit what it means . . ." He broke
off, searching for some words to convey the remembered agony to our
brains that had no capacity (he felt) even to imagine it.
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