‘The ship is in your hands,’ said I.
‘Oh well,’ he exclaimed, as though gratified by my admission, and sending a slow look round the sea; ‘we’ll let ’em be as they are for the present. The anchor’s got a good grip, I allow; if so be as a breeze should come along, we can send some of the men aboard to furl the sails.’
We! thought I, as I regarded him in silence.
‘My sight ain’t what it used to be,’ he continued; ‘yet I can see enough of that there island’—and here he began to fumble with the chart he held—‘to guess that this here’s a first-rate likeness of it. This,’ said he, pointing with his square thumb at the mark in the middle of the lagoon on the parchment, ‘is one of the bearings we’ve got to have in mind to find out where we’re to begin to dig, ain’t it?’
‘I believe so,’ said I.
‘Didn’t ye put down the particulars of the spot in writing?’ he inquired, looking up at me from the chart.
‘No,’ I answered shortly.
‘How many feet was the money hid away from the wash of the water?’ he demanded.
‘It was in paces, I remember,’ I returned, ‘but the figure is entirely gone out of my head. Wilkins should be able to recollect.’
He ran with a sort of dismay to the break of the poop and bawled for Wilkins. The lad came half-way up the steps. The carpenter spoke to him and then returned.