“Well, and ain’t we goin’ due north just now, so that the coast lies away on our left, an’ for the last three hours you’ve bin bearin’ away to the right, something like nor’ and by east, if it’s not nor’ east an’ by east, the coast being all the while on yer port beam, you grampus—that’s so, ain’t it?”
“Yis, dat’s so,” replied Bunco with a grin.
“Then, shiver my timbers, why don’t ye shove yer helm hard a starboard an’ lay yer right coorse? Come, lads, I’ll go to the wheel now for a spell.”
Will Osten was about to object to this, but Bunco gave him a peculiar glance which induced him to agree to the proposal; so Muggins went ahead and the rest followed.
At the place where this dispute occurred there chanced to be a stretch of comparatively open ground leading away to the left. Into this glade the hardy seamen turned with an air of triumph.
His triumph, however, was short-lived, for at a turn in the glade he came to a place where the underwood was so dense and so interlaced with vines and creeping plants that further advance was absolutely impossible. After “yawing about” for some minutes “in search of a channel,” as Larry expressed it, Muggins suddenly gave in and exclaimed,—“I’m a Dutchman, boys, if we ha’n’t got embayed!”
“It’s let go the anchor an’ take soundin’s ’ll be the nixt order, I s’pose, Captain Muggins?” said Larry, touching his cap.
“Or let the tother pilot take the helm,” said Old Peter, “‘he’s all my fancy painted him,’ as Milton says in Paraphrases Lost.”
“Right, Peter,” cried Will Osten, “we must dethrone Muggins and reinstate Bunco.”
“Ha! you’s willin’ for to do second fiddil now?” said the native, turning with a grin to Muggins, as he was about to resume his place at the head of the party.