“Thankee, thankee, Gar’ner—­I know the road, and can find the places I’m going to, though no great navigator.  Now.  I never took a lunar in my life, and can’t do anything with a chronometer; but as for finding the way between Martha’s Vineyard and Cape Horn, I’ll turn my back on no shipmaster living.”

“I’m afraid, Captain Daggett, that we have both of us turned our backs on our true course, when we suffered ourselves to get jammed away down here, on Hatteras.  Why, I never saw the place before, and never wish to see it again!  It’s as much out of the track of a whaler, or sealer, as Jupiter is out of the track of Mars, or Venus.”

“Oh, there go your lunars, about which I know nothing, and care nothing.  I tell you, Gar’ner, a man with a good judgment, can just as well jog about the ’arth, without any acquaintance with lunars, as he can with.  Then, your sealer hasn’t half as much need of your academy-sort of navigation, as another man.  More than half of our calling is luck; and all the best sealing stations I ever heard of, have been blundered on by some chap who has lost his way.  I despise lunars, if the truth must be said; yet I like to go straight to my port of destination.  Take a little sugar with your rum-and-water—­we Vineyard folks like sweetening.”

“For which purpose, or that of going straight to your port, Captain Daggett, you’ve come down here, on your way to the Pacific; or, about five hundred miles out of your way!”

“I came here for company, Gar’ner.  We hadn’t much choice, you must allow, for we couldn’t have weathered the shoals on the other tack.  I see no great harm in our positions, if you hadn’t got dismasted.  That’s a two or three hundred dollar job, and may make your owner grumble a little, but it’s no killing matter.  I’ll stick by you, and you can tell the deacon as much in the letter you’ll write him, when we get in.”

“It seems like doing injustice to your owners, as well as to my own, keeping you here, Captain Daggett,” returned Roswell, innocently, for he had not the smallest suspicion of the true motive of all this apparent good-fellowship, “and I really wish you would now quit me.”

“I couldn’t think of it, Gar’ner.  ’Twould make an awful talk on the Vineyard, was I to do anything of the sort.  ‘Stick by your consort,’ is an eleventh commandment, in our island.”

“Which is the reason why there are so many old maids there, I suppose, Daggett,” cried Roswell Gardiner, laughing.  “Well, I thank you for your kindness, and will endeavour to remember it when you may have occasion for some return.  But, the tide must be making, and we ought to lose no time, unnecessarily.  Here’s a lucky voyage to us both, Captain Daggett, and a happy return to sweethearts and wives.”

Daggett tossed off his glass to this toast, and the two then went on deck.  Roswell Gardiner thought that a kinder ship’s company never sailed together than this of the Sea Lion of Holmes’ Hole; for, notwithstanding the interest of every man on board depended on the returns of their own voyage, each and all appeared willing to stick by him and his craft so long as there was a possibility of being of any service.