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“Well,” said Davis, “you needn’t shout it. You were in it as well as me. I guess we were both fools, but we haven’t come off empty-handed—we’ve got a ship under our feet, though we’re in a bad way, I’ll admit. Can’t you see the game that’s been played on us? This hooker is worth four thousand dollars any day in the week; they’ve let us run off with her, they set her as a trap for us, but they’ll want her back. If we put into any Chile port, we’ll be nabbed and put to work in the salt mines while these blighters will get their ship back.”

“Sure,” said Harman, “but we ain’t goin’ to.”

“How d’ye mean?”

“We ain’t goin’ to put into no Chile port.” Davis sighed, rose, went below and fetched up the top of one of the gold-boxes, then with a stump of pencil he drew a rough map of South America, indicating the appalling coast-line of Chile while the ingenuous Harman looked on open-mouthed and open-eyed.

“There you are,” said the map-maker, “a hundred thousand miles long and nothing but seaboard and there we are—nothing but the Horn to the south and Bolivia to the north, and the Bolivians are hand in fist with the Chilians, and, moreover, there’s sure to be gunboats out to look for us. That’s why I’m holding on west. We’ve got to get to sea and trust in Providence.”