Captain Horn was very angry, for every bag of guano properly packed with gold bars meant, at a rough estimate, between two and three thousand dollars if it safely reached a gold-market, and now he found himself with at least one hundred bags less than he had expected to pack.  There was no time to repair this loss, for the English vessel, the Finland, from Callao to Acapulco, which the captain had engaged to stop at this point on her next voyage northward, might be expected in two or three weeks, certainly sooner than the Chilian could get back to the guano island and return.  In fact, there was barely time for that vessel to reach Callao before the departure of the Finland, on board of which the captain wished his negroes to be placed, that they might go home with him.

“If I had any men to work my vessel,” said the Chilian, who had grown surly in consequence of the fault-finding, “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.”