‘Who’s the madman that talks of home?’ shouted Tom. ‘Shall I sail you up the Thames and moor ye alongside the hulk? Is Plymouth your port, or do you choose Portsmouth?’ ‘Why not try for the islands about Torres Straits?’ exclaimed one of the convicts who had been a seaman. Several bawled to know where Torres Straits were. ‘To the nor’ard of Australia,’ replied the convict. ‘There the sea’s thick with islands. Plenty to eat and drink, mates, and casting away a ship is as easy and safe as drawing a cork.’ ‘Ain’t Norfold Island hard by?’ exclaimed another. ‘My idea,’ said a ringleader, raising his voice as he overhung the poop-rail, ‘is to beach the vessel on the West Coast of Africa. There we breaks up into parties and disperses, and every party has their yarn ready manufactured to account for theirselves ag’in’ being met with or falling in with a settlement.’ ‘Were you ever ashore on that coast?’ exclaimed Tom. ‘No,’ answered the man. ‘Then put this picture before you, one and all, for I who address you know what I am saying: Not a patch of verdure; leagues of sand like glass, glaring and shining; a few half-starved jackals; a few bushmen, who live on beetles and putrefied seals and go clothed in stinking sheepskins; a hare or two at long intervals, and a few sand-plants; the sun at noon like a lantern looming in vapours; here and there penguins braying; here and there sea-fowls shrieking, and the surf roaring always. Is that good enough for you? You’d be clean-picked bones in a week.’ All this while the ocean remained breathless. Far away were the two black specks of quarter-boats, and beyond was the gleam of the long-boat’s sail, a point of light under the horizon like the image of a star. Fortunately for the convicts, the lay of the yards flung the shadow of the canvas upon the deck. Otherwise it was broiling where the sun was. The poop was sheltered by the awning that stretched from the mizzen-mast to the brass rail. Many of the people stood with their coats over their arms and their shirts open. A mist rose from them. I figured how it had been at night in their quarters when I saw that mist and the motionless wind-sails and the main-hatch half sealed with its cage-like barricade. ‘May I speak?’ cried a man on the quarter-deck, lifting up his hand. ‘To the poi’t,’ answered Abram. ‘Every bad with ad idea bay speak; but to the poi’t.’