I stood near and overheard the talk. They called up the sailor, and he pointed to three or four of the islands which he said he had visited. The hare-lipped man asked him if British ships of war cruised in those seas. He answered that here and there a small surveying-vessel might be fallen in with, ‘but nothen to take notice of,’ said he, ‘nothen that’s going to hurt ye. It’s your best chance, gents. Many sorts of vessels are a-touching at them islands for water, nuts, and sometimes for their entertainment, and often again for their convenience. The sailors run, ’specially from the South Seamen. You’ll have your yarns ready in case of questions; but down in them parts curiosity ain’t what you might call active. Stick to this here scheme, and there’s nothen to hinder any man as has a mind to retarn home from finding himself arter a year or two in Lunnon again, with dollars enough in his pocket to keep him in wittles till something turns up.’ ‘All that this man says is very true,’ exclaimed Tom. ‘He’s given us a good scheme. We’re obliged to him.’ Saying this, he edged out of the crowd about the skylight and, seeing me abreast of the rail, came and stood beside me. ‘Is it a good scheme?’ I whispered, without looking at him. ‘It will amuse them,’ he answered softly. ‘I must seem in earnest. What do I care?’ ‘You control them wonderfully.’ ‘Poor wretches!’ he muttered, and, stepping to the companion-way, took the ship’s telescope out of its brackets and pointed it at the three boats upon the sea. Their situation was now determinable to the naked eye by the dim, tiny gleam of the long-boat’s sail. ‘They’re sneaking westward,’ said Tom, talking low with his eye at the glass. ‘The American seaboard may give me the chance I want. Eastward nearly everything afloat is British--curse the name!’ By this time, the convicts on the quarter-deck had got wind of the chart on the poop and were crowding up the ladders to look. That all might obtain a sight, Abram bawled a recommendation to them to form themselves into small divisions. This was done. The chiefs or ringleaders broke up the mass into little gangs, and one after another these gangs came to the skylight and overhung the chart. The cast-eyed sailor with the hair of oakum stood by to answer questions and pointed out the islands. Some of the educated convicts dwelt upon the chart so long, musing, running their fingers down the meridians, calculating distances and so forth, that the waiting gangs howled at them with impatience. Yet all was now orderly as one could wish--far more orderly than I had dared expect.