It was on the afternoon of the day on which I had shifted the barque’s helm, that Wilkins came to me as I sat at dinner with Miss Temple with a message from the carpenter to the effect that he would be glad of a word with me. I answered that I was at Mr. Lush’s disposal when I had dined, but not before. This did not occupy another ten minutes in accomplishing; my companion then withdrew to her cabin, having with much eagerness expressed a number of conjectures as to the carpenter’s motive in soliciting an interview. The man came off the poop by way of the quarter-deck and entered the cabin with his skin cap in hand. ‘I obsarve,’ said he, ‘that you’ve altered the vessel’s course.’ ‘That is so,’ I rejoined. ‘Wetherly was on deck when I left my cabin after working out my sights, and I believed he would have reported the change of course to you.’ ‘No; it was Woodward [one of the sailors] that was at the hellum. He calls me over and points into the binnacle and says: “Ye see what’s happened?” The men ‘ud be glad to know if it’s all right?’ ‘If what is all right?’ ‘Why, if this here course is true for the island? They’ll feel obliged if ye’ll let ’em in here and show ’em the chart and ‘splain the distance and the course and the likes of that to ’em yourself.’ I hardly required him to inform me of their wishes, for I had but to direct my glance at the cabin door to observe them assembled on the quarter-deck awaiting the invitation the carpenter had come to demand; all hands of them, saving Wetherly and the fellow that was steering, called Woodward by Lush. ‘Certainly: let them enter,’ said I; and at once fetched my chart, which I placed upon the table, and went to the other side, ruler in hand, ready to point and to explain. The body of rough men, a few of them with their mahogany lineaments scarcely visible amidst the whiskers, eyebrows, and falls of front hair which obscured their countenances, stood looking upon the chart with Lush in the thick of them, and Forrest’s mutinous, daredevil, rolling face conspicuous over the carpenter’s shoulder. ‘Now, men, what is it you want to know?’ said I. ‘We’re a steering by the compass up above nor’-nor’-west,’ answered Lush; ‘will ye be pleased to tell us how ye make that right?’ I had to fetch a pair of parallel rulers to render my answer intelligible to the illiterate creatures who stood gaping at me with an expression of dull struggling perception that would come and go in a manner that must have moved me to laughter at another time. ‘What part of this here paper is the island wrote down upon?’ demanded Forrest. I pointed with my ruler, and the whole knot of faces came together as they stooped with a sound as of a general snore arising from their vigorous breathing.