When we were near the island of Yucatan our provisions again gave out, and we were compelled to borrow from an Italian trader some sago-palm, flour and several boxes of sultanas.
"What need had you of sultanas?" inquired the chair.
Sultanas are not women, your honor, but dried grapes, which are packed in boxes. When a man is starving he will eat anything! In the neighborhood of Barbados a Turkish vessel very kindly gave us a supply of pickled pork; and the captain of a Chinese junk we fell in with near the Canary Islands, was friendly enough to share his wine with us.
When off Madagascar, a Greek captain loaded our boat so generously with rahut rakum, it almost foundered under the weight; and when near Terre del Fuego we—
"Hold! stop!" screamed the chair thumping with both fists on the map. "If I wanted to make an accurate diagram of your course, I should have to tie a thread to the leg of a grasshopper and let him loose on a blank sheet of paper! A courier on horseback could not have made such twists and turns!"
"We did travel in a sort of zig-zag fashion," admitted the prisoner deprecatingly; "but, you see, none of us understood navigation. Besides, our charts were not accurate, and our compass full of whims."
"Must have been a feminine compass!" jocosely remarked his highness.
"To tell the truth, honorable gentlemen, I am not quite certain if the names I have given you are the ones properly belonging to the portions of the globe we visited. The excellent custom which obtains in all civilized regions, of posting the names of places at the street-corners, had not yet reached those remote corners. I can assure you, however, that we really met all the ships I have mentioned, as we were forced to beg our way over the limitless ocean."
"Beg your way!" sarcastically interrupted the chair. "It seems to me that fifty determined men, with small arms and a cannon, and a boat as swift as yours might have overtaken almost any other craft afloat."
"We did overtake a good many, your honor, and all of them very willingly shared their provisions with us when they saw we were in distress."