aw them
with our own eyes. But you will perhaps be kind enough to tell us who
you are, and how you came to be locked up in that closet."

"Humph!" said the sailor, hesitating. "I don't know who you are, nor
what you're doing in this here place. However, if Lingo's gone, and--Oh
well, I might as well tell you. By the looks of you, I ain't got much
cause to be afraid."

"Your courtesy under the circumstances will be much appreciated," said
the Third Vice-President.

"Courtesy be blowed," said the sailorman. "Well, here goes. I'm Matthew
Speak, able-bodied seaman, of the brig Cotton Mather, out of New
Bedford, Reuben Higginson, master."

"What!" cried Aunt Amanda, almost shrieking. "Are you--? The Cotton
Mather! Reuben Higginson! Did you know him? It ain't possible! I can't
believe it!"

"It ain't nothing to me whether you believes it or not. I shipped with
Reuben Higginson at New Bedford and landed here with him and his crew on
this same identical Island, all tight and safe; here on Correction
Island, as the cap'n called it."

"What!" cried Aunt Amanda again. "Is this Correction Island? Well, I
never! Here we are on Correction Island after all, and we never knew it!
Are you sure?"

"That's what he called it, believe me or not. It ain't nothing to me,
but I seen it on the map I sold to Mizzen, and the cap'n wrote it there
in his own handwrite; that's all I know; but maybe if you'd hunt up this
here Lemuel Mizzen, a sailor with a patch on one eye and--"

"Well, of all things!" exclaimed Aunt Amanda.

"By crackey," said Toby, "I wouldn't 'a' believed it. Lemuel Mizzen!"

"Perhaps you will be so good as to tell us--" began the Third
Vice-President.

"Freddie," said Aunt Amanda, "have you got the map?"

"Yes'm," said Freddie, and produced it from his pocket.

Aunt Amanda took it from him and spread it open on the table before
Matthew Speak. The sailorman glanced at it and nodded his head.

"That's it," said he. "I don't know how you come by it, but that's it.
Higginson was lost with the Cotton Mather in a storm on his way back to
New Bedford, and a lucky chance for me I wasn't aboard. A good while
afterwards a fisherman off of this here Island picked up the map at sea
in a bottle, and I got it off'n him; he squealed a good bit when I stuck
him, but I got it, right enough. And then along comes Mizzen, me being
in hiding, and I sold it to him for a set of false whiskers and a
tattoo-needle."

"Yes, yes," said