‘What is it?’ he asked, looking round upon his mates.
‘Here, Joe,’ said the carpenter, ‘you’re the one scholard aboard us. Tarn to, will ‘ee, and let’s hear what’s wrote down upon these papers.’
The man glanced at me with an expression of sympathy and bashfulness. ‘I hope there’s nothen private and agin your wish in this, sir? ‘he exclaimed. ‘I’m for standin’ neutral in this here job.’
‘Pray read,’ said I.
He did so, backing and filling in his postures in true sailor fashion as he struggled through the writing, reciting the words slowly, with considerable pauses between, which furnished his hearers with time to digest what he delivered. He then put the papers down, but with an air of astonishment, as I noticed with grief and anxiety, as if having been before incredulous of the captain’s story, he was beginning to regard it as a fact now in the face of such documentary evidence as he had read.
‘All right, Joe; thank ye,’ said the carpenter gruffly; ‘you can go on deck agin.’ The man went up the ladder slowly, as though lost in thought. ‘Lads,’ exclaimed Lush, ‘ye’ll agree with me there’s no need for further arguefication after what ye’ve just heard.’
‘The money’s right enough, and we’ll git it,’ said one of the men.
‘Where’s the chart of the island as Wilkins said the captain talked about?’ inquired the limber bold-faced young seaman with whom I had spoken at the wheel when I found the barque off her course.
All eyes were at once turned upon me. ‘You’ll find it in the drawer of the table of the captain’s cabin,’ said I.
The fellow coolly entered the berth, and presently returned with a handful of papers. ‘Which’ll it be, sir?’ he exclaimed, placing them before me. I picked up the parchment chart, and gave it to the carpenter, who spread it out before him, and instantly all the men came round to his chair, and stood in a heap of shouldering figures mowing and mopping over his shoulders to catch a view, tossing the hair with jerks of their heads out of their eyes, and breathing hard with excitement.