Almost tongue-tied, therefore, now by his former silence on the subject, he temporised with the difficulty, determined not to be cornered if he could help it.
"'Deed an' I mad' it e'en the same as the deed reck'nin' cam' to, Cap'en, a wee bit to the westwar' o' twenty-seven, and close to the leen." "Then your sextant must have been out of order, or your calculations wrong," replied the skipper, shortly.

"We are evidently much to the westwards of your reckoning.

How did you observe the danger--was there a man on the look-out ?" "Nae, sir, I didna think we required yon," answered Macdougall, now at his wit's end for a reply.
"No, I should think not," said Captain Billings, in his dry way; "but who was it that warned you in time to wear the ship ?" "Mister Leigh, sir," put in Jorrocks, thinking the time now come to speak up for me.

"He heard the noise of the breakers first, and called my 'tention to 'em, and I then sung out to put the helm up." "Oh!" ejaculated the skipper, quite taken aback by my name being thus suddenly brought up by Jorrocks--just as he was thinking of me and my recent shortcomings, as he afterwards explained to me.
"Yes, sir," continued my old friend the boatswain, believing it best to push the matter home, now he had once introduced me on the carpet; "and he begged me to tell you, sir, as how he'd left his chart on the cabin sky-light, where he'd jotted down summat as he'd diskivered when taking the sun, before the rumpus arose 'twixt him and Muster Macdougall." "Chart!" interposed the mate, making a step towards the sky-light, and trying to throw the tarpaulin that was hanging there over it whilst pretending to drag it off, "I see no chart here." "Why, here it is," exclaimed the skipper, noticing one end of the roll, which projected from beneath the tarpaulin; and, pulling it out, he walked back again towards the binnacle, by the light of which he inspected my tracing of the ship's path on the chart carefully.
"Pass the word forwards for Martin Leigh," he cried out presently; and I, listening below in the waist, just under the break of the poop, to all that had transpired, very quickly answering to the call of my name as it was sung out by Jorrocks, mounted up the poop ladder, and advanced aft to where Captain Billings stood.
"Leigh," said he, quietly, "I have sent for you to explain matters about this chart.

Did you take an observation to-day as I told you ?" "Yes, sir," I replied.
"And did you agree with Mr Macdougall ?" "No, sir," said I, unable to avoid the joke, "we didn't agree--we fell out, as you saw!" Jorrocks burst out laughing at this, and even the skipper himself couldn't repress a smile--although he bit his lips to hide it, seeing the first mate scowling at me as if he could eat me up without salt, for he was afraid of the truth now coming out.
"Don't be impudent, Leigh! you know what I mean well enough.