lish this?" for
I saw he had a scheme to bring forward.

"Nothing easier," replied Bob. "Build a little craft big enough to
accommodate the two of us; with room to stow away our grub and water,
and the two tons of gold; and up anchor and away."

"But," said I, "you forget that this island is somewhere in the Pacific.
Such a craft as you speak of would be totally unfit for the voyage we
contemplate."

"Why?" inquired Bob.

"Why?" repeated I, astonished at the question. "Simply because we
should never get across the Bay of Biscay in her, to say nothing of the
remainder of the voyage."

"Why not?" demanded Bob, rather pugnaciously.

"Do you mean to say," I retorted, "that you can sit there and propose in
cold blood such a hair-brained scheme as that we two should undertake a
voyage to the Pacific in a mere _boat_?"

"I do," replied Bob emphatically. "That's a simple way out of all your
difficulties. The craft will be your own; there will be no risk of the
crew rising upon us for the sake of our cargo; and nobody to say `What
are we doing here?' or `What do you want there?' Why, it will be a mere
pleasure trip from end to end, all play and no work, leastways none to
speak on!"

"But, my dear fellow, _do_ be serious," protested I. "You know, as well
as I do, that we should be swamped the first time we fell in with a
capful of wind."

"Maybe we should, if we went to work like a couple of know-nothing land-
lubbers," retorted Bob; "but if we went to work like seamen, as we are,
I should like to know what's to purvent our sailing round the world if
we like! Answer me that."

"Come, Bob, old man, let us hear the full extent of your proposition,"
said I. "I know that, whatever it may be, it will be the proposal of a
thorough seaman, for if any one could carry out the wild scheme you have
suggested, you are the man."

"'Tain't such a very wild scheme neither," replied Bob. "Answer me
this. How many people was saved from the _London_ when she foundered in
the Bay of Biscay?"

"Nineteen, if I remember rightly," replied I.

"Very well; now if a small boat of about twenty-five feet long or
thereabouts, _open_, mind you, from stem to starn, could live twenty
hours with nineteen people in her, as the _London's_ pinnace did, in
weather that the old ship herself couldn't stand up agin, how long will
a full-decked boat of, say, thirty to thirty-five feet long, carefully
constructed, and in good trim, live with o