“You’re right, Larry,” said Will. “If they see us much together, they’ll naturally suspect that we are plotting, so—”
At this point a voice growled from an adjacent hammock—
“Avast spinnin’ yarns there, will ’e!”
“Ay, it’s that sea-cook, Larry O’Hale,” cried Muggins aloud; “he was always over fond o’ talking.”
Larry, who at the first sound had slipped away to his hammock, shouted from under the blankets, “Ye spalpeen, it’s no more me than yersilf; sure I’d have been draimin’ of ould Ireland if ye—hadn’t—(snore) me grandmother—(yawn) or the pig—”
A prolonged snore terminated this sentence, and Muggins turned into his hammock, while Will Osten rose, with a quiet laugh, and went on deck.
One morning, some weeks after the conversation just related, our hero was leaning over the bulwarks near the fore-chains, watching the play of the clear waves as the ship glided quietly but swiftly through them before a light breeze. Will was in a meditative frame of mind, and had stood there gazing dreamily down for nearly half an hour, when his elbow was touched by the man named Bunco, who had long before recovered from his exposure in the canoe.
Will was a little surprised, for he had not had much intercourse with the man, and could not comprehend the confidential and peculiar look and tone with which he now addressed him.
“Mister Os’en,” he said, in a low voice, after a few preliminary words, “you be tink of escape?”
Will was startled: “Why do you think so?” he asked, in some alarm.