Chapter Nine.
An Unnatural Mother.
“Yis, Capting, thet’s Sarmiento, an’ nary doubt of it,” pursues the old sealer. “I’d reck’noise thet mountin ’mong a millyun. ’Tair the highest in all Feweego. (Note 1.) An’ we must be at the mouth o’ Des’late Bay, jest as I wor suspectin’. Wal, ’ceptin’ them ugly things I told ye ’bout, we kudn’t be in a better place.”
“Why?” inquires the Captain, dubiously.
“’Kase it ain’t a bay at all; but the entrance to a soun’ bearin’ the name o’ ‘Whale-Boat Soun’.’ An’ thet’s open water too, communicatin’ wi’ another known ez ‘Darwin Soun’’—the which larst leads right inter the Beagle Channel.”
“But what of all that, Chips? How can it help us?”
“Help us! Why, ’tair the very i-dentical thing ez ’ll help us; our coorse is laid out to a p’int o’ the kompiss! All we’ll hev to do is to run east’ard through the Beagle Channel, an’ then ’long the open coast to good Success Bay, in the Straits o’ Le Maire. Thar we’ll be a’most sure o’ findin’ some o’ the sealin’ vessels, thet bein’ one o’ thar rendeyvoos when they’re fishin’ roun’ Staten Land.”
“You think that better, then, than trying to the northward for the Straits of Magellan?” inquires Captain Gancy.