"Mebby dat am all imagination, sah!" added Bucephalus.
"What is it if it isn't men!" asked Ben.
"Parrots!" laughed Jack. "Don't you remember, you fellows, what we told you happened to us the other day when we were ashore together, Dick and I?"
"H'm! and I forgot all about it," chuckled Billy.
"Oh, that's different!" said J.W., greatly relieved.
"Parrots?" asked Ben. "Poll parrots? Well, I'll be keelhauled!"
"Mah we 'd! Ah knowed parrots could talk an' use de mos' obstreperous vocabulary at dat," declared the negro cook, "but Ah done suspected dat dey was men, fo' shuah Ah did."
The parrots, for such indeed they were, as all the party now realized, continued to talk and scream and chatter, and in a short time the boys and their companions caught sight of a number of them as they came out into a more open bit of woods.
"We were a bit alarmed ourselves, as you may remember," said Jack, "when we first heard them, and it was some little time before we realized that they were not men."
"They have caught the talk of men who have been to the island," added Percival, "and probably that of men who are here now. That calf is a tame creature and is probably owned by some one now on the island. The parrots may have heard them."