"I'd leave your negroes here,
and cut loose from the whole business. I've had enough of it."

"That serves you right for discharging your own men in order that you
might work your vessel with mine," said Captain Horn. He had intended to
insist that the negroes should ship again with the Chilian, but he knew
that it would be more difficult to find reasons for this than on the
previous voyage, and he was really more than glad to find that the matter
had thus arranged itself.

Talking with Captain Horn, the Chilian mate, who had had no
responsibility in this affair, and who was, consequently, not out of
humor, proposed that he should go back with them, and take the English
vessel at Callao.

"I can't risk it," said Captain Horn. "If your schooner should meet
with head winds or any other bad luck, and the _Finland_ should leave
before I got there, there would be a pretty kettle of fish, and if she
touched here and found no one in charge, I don't believe she would take
away a bag."

"Do you think they will be sure to touch here?" asked the mate. "Have
they got the latitude and longitude? It didn't seem so bad before to
leave you behind, because we were coming back, but now it strikes me it
is rather a risky piece of business for you."

"No," said Captain Horn. "I am acquainted with the skipper of the
_Finland,_ and I left a letter for him telling him exactly how the matter
stood, and he knows that I trust him to pick me up. I do not suppose he
will expect to find me here all alone, but if he gives me the slip, I
would be just as likely to starve to death if I had some men with me as
if I were alone. The _Finland_ will stop--I am sure of that."

With every reason for the schooner's reaching Callao as soon as possible,
and very little reason, considering the uncordial relations of the two
captains, for remaining in the cove, the Chilian set sail the morning
after he had discharged his unsavory cargo. Maka had begged harder than
before to be allowed to remain with Captain Horn, but the latter had made
him understand, as well as he could, the absolute necessity of the
schooner reaching Callao in good time, and the absolute impossibility of
any vessel doing anything in good time without a cook. Therefore, after a
personal inspection of the stores left behind, both in the tent and in
the Rackbirds' storehouse, which latter place he visited with great
secrecy, Maka, with a sad heart, was obliged to leave the only real
frien