"Next," said the captain, "I learn we are going after treasure--hear it from my own hands, mind you. Now, treasure is ticklish work; I don't like treasure-voyages on any account; and I don't like them, above all, when they are secret, and when (begging your pardon, Mr. Trelawney) the secret has been told to the parrot."
"It's a way of speaking," said the captain. "Blabbed, I mean. It's my belief neither of you gentlemen know what you are about; but I'll tell you my way of it--life or death, and a close run."
"That is all clear, and, I daresay, true enough," replied Dr. Livesey. "We take the risk; but we are not so ignorant as you believe us.--Next, you say you don't like the crew. Are they not good seamen?"
"I don't like them, sir," returned Captain Smollett. "And I think I should have had the choosing of my own hands, if you go to that."
"Perhaps you should," replied the doctor. "My friend should perhaps have taken you along with him; but the slight, if there be one, was unintentional.--And you don't like Mr. Arrow?"
"I don't, sir. I believe he's a good seaman; but he's too free with the crew to be a good officer. A mate should keep himself to himself--shouldn't drink with the men before the mast!"
"Do you mean he drinks?" cried the squire.
"No, sir," replied the captain; "only that he's too familiar."
"Well, now, and the short and long of it, captain?" asked the doctor. "Tell us what you want."
"Well, gentlemen, are you determined to go on this cruise?"
"Very good," said the captain. "Then, as you've heard me very patiently, saying things that I could not prove, hear me a few words more. They are putting the powder and the arms in the fore hold. Now, you have a good place under the cabin; why not put them there?--first point. Then you are bringing four of your own people with you, and they tell me some of them are to be berthed forward. Why not give them the berths here beside the cabin?--second point."
"One more," said the captain. "There's been too much blabbing already."
"I'll tell you what I've heard myself," continued Captain Smollett: "that you have a map of an island; that there's crosses on the map to show where treasure is; and that the island lies----" And then he named the latitude and longitude exactly.