"'Lord love ye, Harry, belay there!' said Jack; 'what's the good o' talkin' on what ain't like to be?' 'Less like things turn up,' said Harry. 'More by token, if I hasn't pitched upon my fancy lass a'ready; an' who knows, old ship, but you marries a naboob's darter yet, and gets yourself shoved all square, like a riglar hare, into his heestate, as they calls it? For my part, I've more notion of the _maid_! An' it'll go hard with me if we doesn't manage to haul that 'ere mishynar parson safe ashore on the strength of it.' 'God bless ye, Harry,' answered Jack, somewhat mournfully, 'I'm twice spliced already!' 'Third time's lucky, though,' replied Harry, with a chuckle, as he walked towards the side again and looked over; the rest of the watch being gathered on the other bow, talking and laughing; the passengers beginning to appear on the poop, and the Scotch second mate standing up aft on the taffrail, feeling for a breath of wind. The big topman came slowly back to his companion, and leant himself on the spars again. 'Blowed if I don't think you're right, mate,' said he, 'you and that 'ere lawyer. You'd a'most say there's a ripple round her larboard bow just now, sure enough--like she were broadside on to some drift or another. Hows'ever, that's neither here nor there; for my part, I sets more count by the look o' the sky to east'ard; an' be blowed, shipmate, if that same yonder don't make me think of _woods_.' 'Well,' said Jack, '_I_ goes by sunrise, messmate, an' I didn't like it overmuch myself, d' ye see! That 'ere talk o' yours, Harry, consarnin' dazarts and what not--why, bless me, it's all my eye--this bout, at any rate--seein' as how, if we doesn't have a stiff snuffler out o' that very quarter afore twenty-four hours is over, you call me lubber!' "'Ho, ho! old salt,' chuckled Harry, 'none o' them saws holds good hereaway; if it's the coast of Africay, mate, _two_ watches 'll settle our hash in them longitudes, without going the length o' _six_! Ha'n't I knocked about the bloody coast of it six weeks at a time, myself, let alone livin' as many months in the woods?--so I knows the breedin' of a turn_a_dy a cussed sight too well, not to speak on the way the landblink looms afore you sights it!' "'_Lived_ in them there woods, did ye?' inquired Jack. 'Ay, bo', an' a rum rig it was too, sure enough,' said Harry; 'the very same time I told you on, i' the Bight o' Benin.' 'My eye,' exclaimed the other, 'a man never knows what he may come to. Let's into the rights of it, Harry, can't ye, afore eight bells strikes?'