"There is the water, Jackson; if you want anything, call me. I shall be
outside."
"I have gained the mastery," thought I,--"it will be my turn now. He
don't like to answer, but he shall, or he shall starve. Why does he
feel so angry at my name? Henniker! What is the meaning of Henniker, I
wonder? I will make him tell me. Yes, he shall tell me everything." I
may here observe, that as for pity and compassion, I did not know such
feelings. I had been so ill-treated, that I only felt that might was
right; and this right I determined upon exercising to the utmost. I
felt an inconceivable pleasure at the idea of my being the master, and
he the boy. I felt the love of power, the pride of superiority. I then
revolved in my mind the daily task which I would set him before he
should receive his daily sustenance. He should talk now as much as I
pleased, for I was the master. I had been treated as a slave, and I was
now fully prepared to play the tyrant. Mercy and compassion I knew not.
I had never seen them called forth, and I felt them not. I sat down on
the flat rock for some time, and then it occurred to me that I would
turn the course of the water which fell into the hole at the edge of the
cliff; so that if he crawled there, he would not be able to obtain any.
I did so, and emptied the hole. The water was now only to be obtained
by climbing up, and it was out of his power to obtain a drop. Food, of
course, he could obtain, as the dried birds were all piled up at the
farther end of the cabin, and I could not well remove them; but what was
food without water? I was turning in my mind what should be the first
question put to him; and I had decided that I would have a full and
particular account of how the vessel had been wrecked on the island, and
who were my father and mother, and why I was named Henniker--when I was
roused by hearing Jackson (as I shall in future call him) crying out,
"Boy, boy!"
"Boy, indeed," thought I--"no longer boy," and I gave no reply.
Again he called, and at last he cried out "Henniker," but I had been
ruffled by his calling me boy, and I would not answer him. At last he
fairly screamed my name, and then was silent. After a moment, I
perceived that he crawled out of his bed-place, and feeling by the sides
of the cabin, contrived on his hands and knees to crawl in the direction
of the hole into which the water had previously been received; and I
smiled at what I knew would be his disappointment when he arrived there.
He did so at last: put his hand to feel the edge of the hole, and then
down into it to feel for the water; and when he found that there was
none, he cursed bitterly, and I laughed at his vexation. He then felt
all the way down where the water had fallen, and found that the course
of it had been stopped, and he dared not attempt anything further. He
dashed his clenched hand against the rock. "Oh! That I had him in this
grasp--if it were but for one moment. I would not care if I died the
next."
"I do not doubt you," replied I to him, above; "but you have not got me
in your hands, and you will not. Go in to bed directly--quick," cried
I, throwing a piece of rock at him, which hit him on the head. "Crawl
back as fast as you can, you fool, or I'll send another at your head
directly. I'll tame you, as you used to say to me."
The blow on the head appeared to have confused him; but after a time he
crawled back to his bed-place, and threw himself down with a heavy
groan.