“Just because Captain Baudin, who was by no means a timid man, was so afraid in 1802, of the croaking of the Australian frogs, that he raised his anchor with all possible speed, and quitted the coast, never to return.”
“What!” exclaimed Paganel. “Do they actually give that version of it in England? But it is just a bad joke.”
“Bad enough, certainly, but still it is history in the United Kingdom.”
“It’s an insult!” exclaimed the patriotic geographer; “and they relate that gravely?”
“I must own it is the case,” replied Glenarvan, amidst a general outburst of laughter. “Do you mean to say you have never heard of it before?”
“Never! But I protest against it. Besides, the English call us ‘frog-eaters.’ Now, in general, people are not afraid of what they eat.”
“It is said, though, for all that,” replied McNabbs. So the Major kept his famous rifle after all.
CHAPTER V THE STORM ON THE INDIAN OCEAN
Two days after this conversation, John Mangles announced that the DUNCAN was in longitude 113 degrees 37 minutes, and the passengers found on consulting the chart that consequently Cape Bernouilli could not be more than five degrees off. They must be sailing then in that part of the Indian Ocean which washed the Australian continent, and in four days might hope to see Cape Bernouilli appear on the horizon.