To this Watts made no answer.
"And here ended the first voyage, hey?"
"Yes."
"How many were made in all?"
"I made three trips, and Captain M'Lellan two—and it runs in my head there was another, but I am not sure. I returned from my third voyage on the 18th day of July, 1842, in the Grampus, a little schooner of about seventy-five tons."
"Perhaps you would have no objection to tell me something about the other voyages?"
"Well, squire, to tell you the truth, we didn't land at all on the second voyage. July 14th, we'd fell to leeward, and was beating up. I had been all night on the look-out—I was master that trip—and we had got far enough to bear up and run down under the lee of the island. We saw huts there, and twenty or thirty people, and we didn't much like their behavior. When they saw us, they ran down to the landing and took two boats and launched 'em. I offered to go ashore, if anybody would go with me. John Mac, he first agreed to it, but all the others refused; and then he said he would go if the others would. And then we steered for Portland Harbor."
"Well, and the third voyage?"
"That we made in the Grampus. Captain Josh Safford and Captain Bill Drinkwater went with us. We found two Spaniards upon the island. Their boats had gone to Porto Rico after provisions, they said. So Captain Safford, he gave them two muskets, with powder and ball, and they went off hunting goats. After this, I didn't consider myself justified in going ashore; and Captain Drinkwater complained a good deal of the liberty Safford took in supplying strangers with firearms. They might pop a fellow off at any time, you know, and nobody thereabouts would a ben the wiser."
"And here endeth the third voyage, hey?"