"You can't be in earnest," said Raed, suddenly looking round to him.

"I am," said Kit. "Decidedly the easiest way (for us) to deal with them. If we were to go over there with a show of authority, they wouldn't make much resistance, I'm very sure. We would take possession of their _oomiak_. That would hold them to the island. They couldn't get off without that,--at least, the women and children couldn't; and the men would not desert their families."

"Now, there's a scheme of rapine worthy of Caesar!" sneered Raed. "Kit, I am ashamed of you!"

"I don't care. We're in a tight place. I don't mean them any harm.

But, if we are going to be dependent on them for our supplies, it will be much better for us to have them under our authority. They're a mere set of ignorant heathens. We know more than they do; and it is but fair that the wisest should govern."

"That's the very argument the old piratical sea-kings of Norway used to use!" Raed exclaimed. "It's about a thousand years behind civilized times!"

"Not so far behind the times as that, I guess," Kit replied. "But I don't care: this is a force-put with us. We don't want to place ourselves in the power of those savages. Yet we need their a.s.sistance,--a.s.sistance for which we will repay them well when 'The Curlew' comes,--if it comes. Now, I say it is best for us, and will be better for them, to have them do as we want them to while we are on their island."

"In a word, you propose to make slaves of them," remarked Raed. "You mean to deprive them of their liberty."

"Yes, to a certain extent, I do."

"I am sorry to hear you talk in this way. I hoped no citizen of a free State would use language like that."

"Sorry to shock your sincere convictions," replied Kit; "but when it comes to making slaves of others, or being a slave myself, I should choose the former alternative always."

"But there's no such alternative in this case," Raed argued.

"Not exactly. Still I shall hold to my first opinion. If we are going to take supplies from them,--as it seems necessary that we should,--I think it will be better to have them under our control as long as we are here. You mistake me: I don't justify it from principle; but, as a temporary measure, I think it expedient."

"So was it expedient for the old Romans to attack and capture Corinth and Carthage, and just as fair and right."

"That merely shows how history repeats itself," laughed Kit.

"Don't laugh, sir!" cried Raed. "The principle is the same, as if, with a hundred thousand men at your back, you should land in England, and undertake to subdue that island instead of this."

"You have a very forcible way of putting things, I'll allow; but there's danger, Raed, of carrying general principles too far."

"For example," interrupted Wade. "Raed, with a number of other abolitionists, believed that all men ought to be free: so they kept to work stirring up bad feeling between the North and South till the war broke out, when they fell upon us with their armies and fleets, and committed the most wholesale piece of robbery that ever disgraced history,--robbed us of several billion dollars' worth of property, all at one swoop."

"To what sort of property do you refer?" Raed asked.

"Slaves."

"I thought so!"

"Then you are not disappointed in my 'principles,' as you choose to term them?"

"Not in the least!"

"I, at least, have never tried to conceal them."

"I should expect you to favor Kit's proposition; but I'm sadly surprised to hear Kit make it."

"Understand me!" exclaimed Kit. "I advocate it merely as a temporary measure, only justified by our necessity. I mean to pay them for all we have. But we haven't the pay here. They wouldn't trust us for what we want. Under these circ.u.mstances, I mean to a.s.sume the control of their affairs for a few days or weeks, as the case may be, and get what we must have by force of authority--till we can pay."

"It's nothing more nor less than robbery, Kit!" cried Raed; "a mere subterfuge, in open violation of the free principles of the n.o.ble land we hail from!"

"Too bad, I know," said Kit; "but 'needs must where a _certain person_ drives.'"

"Kit, you shock me! Do you not believe in an allwise Providence?"

"Generally speaking, yes."

"A Power that takes care of us?"

"Yes, again; but it's after a sort not very flattering to the personal vanity of us poor mortals."

"One would naturally suppose, that, situated as we are at present, where the prospect of our getting through the next six months is so poor, you would hesitate at provoking that Power by such an act as this you propose."

"Raed, that's all bosh! If you mean to ask me if I believe that there is a Power that will interfere miraculously to rescue us from freezing or starving here, I answer promptly, I do not. G.o.d doesn't work so.

Persons have to take the consequences of their own acts in this world, now-a-days. And as regards tempting Providence by doing any thing of the sort I proposed,--tempting it to some act of vengeance on us,--bosh again! G.o.d doesn't work that way at all. Besides, to come back to the subject in hand, I've no conscientious scruples about it; for I believe it to be the best thing we can do."

"I protest!" Raed exclaimed. "It is neither just nor right!"

"Well, how's this matter to be settled?" Wade demanded. "I suppose so rigid a republican as Raed will be willing to have it decided by vote?"

"Yes," said Raed, "though I lament the issue. Call our names, Kit.

Those in favor of Kit's proposition will vote 'Yea:' those who believe it wrong will vote 'Nay.'"

Kit's voice trembled a little as he began.

"Raed?"

"Nay."

"Wash?"

"Nay."

"Wade?"

"Yea."

"Donovan?"

"Yea."

"Weymouth?"

"Yea."

"Not to include my own vote with the affirmative, there is a majority in favor of the measure we have just discussed," said Kit gravely.

"Please put it in words," said Raed.