In other words, he had cut off their heads, necks, and feet, and then cased them thickly with the soft, unctuous clay from the foot of the bank; and directly we came he raked away some of the burning embers, placed the clay lumps on the earth, and raked back all the glowing ashes before piling more wood over the hissing masses.
"Velly soon cook nicee," he said, smiling; and then he went to the waterside to get rid of the clay with which he was besmirched.
Mr Brooke walked to the sentinels, and for want of something else to do I stood pitching pieces of drift-wood on to the fire, for the most part shattered fragments of bamboo, many of extraordinary thickness, and all of which blazed readily and sent out a great heat.
"Makes a bit of a change, Mr Herrick, sir," said Jecks, as the men off duty lay about smoking their pipes, and watching the fire with eyes full of expectation.
"Yes; rather different to being on shipboard, Jecks," I said.
"Ay, 'tis, sir.

More room to stretch your legs, and no fear o' hitting your head agin a beam or your elber agin a bulkhead.

Puts me in mind o' going a-gipsying a long time ago." "`In the days when we went gipsying, a long time ago,'" chorussed the others musically.
"Steady there," I said.

"Silence." "Beg pardon, sir," said one of the men; and Tom Jecks chuckled.

"But it do, sir," he said.