‘What d’ye say to it, Butler?’ shouted a fellow.
‘Do what you please,’ answered my sweetheart.
‘Advise us,’ said the hare-lipped man.
‘It’s a landlubber’s fancy,’ said Tom.
A number of men talked at once. One of the original crew of the Childe Harold roared out: ‘It’s smothering rot! The capt’n’s laughing at you! Chase! In a craft arter this pattern, with twelve or fourteen hands and a working crew, ne’er a great gun nor a soul saving the capt’n and the mate as ’ud be capable of navigating them small craft after they was boarded and taken!’ He spat hard and turned his back in contempt.
‘My notion’s been this all through the blushen piece,’ said a beetle-browed, flat-nosed, ruffianly looking convict. ‘Sail to an oninhabited hisland and settle him. A hisland where there’s grub agoing in fruit-trees and beastesses of fish what crawls upon the beach, all which there’ll be some here as has heard of. Where water trickles sweet an’ cold, and the weather it ain’t too hot. There, upon that hisland, we can concoct and consart, and them what pleases can be took off by passing vessels. The others will be a-doing as did them mutineers of the Bounty whose capt’n he was named Bligh. We moors this ship and keeps her handy. Females ain’t ever fur to look for. In this ’ere ship wives can be brought from places which ain’t too fur off and where the colour won’t be wrong, the ’igh seas being vide of choice. That’s bin my notion all through the fired piece.’
‘Who’s next?’ shouted Abram, impatiently.
One of the remaining crew of the ship—a sailor with a cast eye and a head of hair so exactly resembling oakum that no convict could look at it without finding something personal and a sort of reflection in it—this man, who sat high-perched above the heads of the throng on the quarter-deck winch, snapped his fingers at the poop and asked leave to address the gents.
‘What d’ye want to say?’ shouted the hare-lipped man, who, I gathered, ranked next to Abram as the principal ringleader.
‘Gents, all,’ cried the fellow, ‘man an’ boy, I’ve followed the seas for two and twenty years, and in that time I’ve sailed all about the world and there’s scarce a furrin part as I haven’t visited. Now, if I was you, speaking with Captain Butler’s good leave, what I’d do’s this: Round the Horn t’other side of South Amerikay there lies what’s called the Narth Pacific Ocean. From the Sandwich Islands, right away to this side the Philippines, including of the Ladrones and the Caroline Islands, it’s all chock-a-block with the sort of little countries ye oughter visit. A lovely cordial drink they manufactures out of cocoanut juice. There’s no call for clothes. The natives are friendly disposed. Them as ain’t are easily knocked over the head. White men like yourselves live in them islands. If I was you gents, I’d get Captain Butler to steer the ship into the Narth Pacific, touch and discharge a score of ye, touch and discharge another score, touch and touch again till this here multitude was broke up. That’s my notion, gents, and your chance, and I’ll ask Captain Butler what he thinks.’