"It is just too delightful for anything," she assured him. "It is like a page out of some romance. Here I come along out of the sea and find a sick man all alone with two hundred slaves--"
"Recruits," he corrected. "Contract labourers. They serve only three years, and they are free agents when they enter upon their contracts."
"Yes, yes," she hurried on. "--A sick man alone with two hundred recruits on a cannibal island--they are cannibals, aren't they? Or is it all talk?"
"Talk!" he said, with a smile. "It's a trifle more than that. Most of my boys are from the bush, and every bushman is a cannibal."
"But not after they become recruits? Surely, the boys you have here wouldn't be guilty."
"They'd eat you if the chance afforded."
"Are you just saying so, on theory, or do you really kn
