Then we would all pretend to eat also, saying how much we felt refreshed by the food and how we longed for more, smacking our lips and biting on a piece of wood so that she could not help hearing us.
This piteous farce went on for forty-eight hours or more until at last the wretched Japhet, who was quite demoralized and in no mood for acting, betrayed us, exactly how I cannot remember.

After this Maqueda would touch nothing more, which did not greatly matter as there was only one biscuit left.

I offered it to her, whereon she thanked me and all of us for our courtesy toward a woman, took the biscuit, and gave it to Japhet, who ate it like a wolf.
It was some time after this incident that we discovered Japhet to be missing; at least we could no longer touch him, nor did he answer when we called.

Therefore, we concluded that he had crept away to die and, I am sorry to say, thought little more about it for, after all, what he suffered, or had suffered, we suffered also.
I recall that before we were overtaken by the last sleep, a strange fit came upon us.

Our pangs passed away, much as the pain does when mortification follows a wound, and with them that horrible craving for nutriment.