"No," came a dull voice from the couch--startling us, dull though it
was. "Only you and I, Farrell, understand what it means. Tell them
just the facts, as I told the facts, and no more. Tell them, and me,
how you escaped."
"By the same ship as you did, if you wish to know--the _I'll Away_
schooner, Captain Jefferson Hales. And I'll tell you something even
more surprising.--Your ill-luck started the very hour you left me and
Rover to die like two dogs together. When you stepped aboard the
_I'll Away_, you stepped aboard as a lost missionary. You had your
own bad reasons for not wanting to tell too much: and Hales had his
own very good reasons for not putting too many questions. To start
with, he didn't like missionaries as a class, _or_ their
conversation: and I gather that his crew likewise didn't take much
truck in them; neither in the species nor in you as a specimen: least
of all in you as a specimen. I'm sorry for it, too, in a way:
because, at first, I pictured them asking you to put up a prayer, and
pictured your face and feelings as you knelt down to oblige.
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