"And so," continued the carpenter, "our plan is this: as easy as sayin' your prayers. We'll draw lots and choose upon the coast for you to run us to; and when we're a day's sail of them parts, leavin' you to tell us and to keep us out o' the way of ships, d'ye mind, Mr. Royle?"—with stern significance: I nodded—"some of us gets into the long-boat and some into the quarter-boats, and we pulls for the shore. And wot we do and says when we gets ashore needn't matter, eh, mates? We're shipwrecked mariners, destitoot and forlorn, and every man's for hisself. And so that's our plan."
"Yes, that's our plan," said one: "but it ain't all. You're not putting everything to Mr. Royle, mate."
"Look here, Bill," answered the carpenter savagely. "Either I'm to manage this here business or I'm not. If you're for carryin' of it on, good and well—say the word, and then we'll know the time o' day. But either it must be you or it must be I—there ain't room for two woices in one mouth."
"I've got nothen to say," rejoined the man addressed as "Bill," extending his arms and turning his back; "only I thought as you might ha' forgot."
What the carpenter was holding back I could not guess; but I exhibited no curiosity. Neither did I tell them that our course to the "American shores," as they called it, would bring us right in the road of vessels from all parts of the world. My business was to listen and to act as circumstances should dictate, with good judgment, if possible, for the preservation of my own and the lives of the old man and his daughter.
The carpenter now paused to hear what I had to say. Finding this, I exclaimed—
"I know what you want me to do; and the sooner you fix upon a point to start for the better."
"Can't you advise us?" said one of the men. "Give us some place easily fetched."
"I was never on the North American coast," I answered.
"Well, Ameriky ain't the only place in the world," said Fish.