“But we won’t find our way home,” said Billy, “if we don’t start pretty soon, for it will be dark in a little while.”

“The funny fellow grows serious once in a while,” chuckled Dick, “but I think he is right for all that.”

“I think we had better be going myself,” said Jack.  “Ben Bowline?”

“Sir to you, sir,” said the seaman.

“Steer south, and go on a free wind at four miles.”

“Aye-aye, sir!” said Ben, and they all set out for home, as they called the yacht.

“Talkin’ about calves,” said Ben Bowline as they were walking on in a body through the woods, “there was another adventure of mine which——­”

“You’re a liar!” suddenly interrupted a strident voice speaking in Spanish and then some bad language in the same tongue followed.

“Mah goodness, dat am fightin’ talk!” exclaimed Bucephalus.  “Ah wouldn’ stan’ dat, Sailorman.”

“Jus’ wait till I get my mudhooks onto him,” growled Ben, “an’ I’ll let Trim know whether I’ll stan’ it or not.”

“There are people on the island besides ourselves,” muttered young Smith, getting close to Jack and Dick.  “Maybe they own the calf.”

“If you tell them anything about me,” sputtered Billy, “I won’t speak to you again in a week.”

Then there was more talk in Spanish and Bucephalus put his hands over his ears and whistled.

“Mah wo’d!  Ah done hear disreputable language in mah days, but nothin’ to compaiah with that!” he declared emphatically.  “It ain’t respectable.  Ef Ah meet de fellah wha’ talk lak dat Ah’s gwan to tell him wha’ Ah done thought ob him.”

There was still more of the talk, and Ben Bowline doubled his fists and said angrily: 

“It’s as bad to be told you’re a liar in Spanish as it is in English or French or Dutch or any other lingo, an’ I’m not goin’ to take it from nobody.  Just wait till I get hold——­”

Dick and Jack were both laughing heartily now, much to young Smith’s amazement, Billy’s surprise and the disgust of Ben Bowline, Bucephalus looking on and wondering what had come over his “young gentlemen” as he was accustomed to call them.

“What are you two fellows laughing at?” asked Billy.

“I don’t see anything funny in it!” sputtered Ben.

“I think it’s awful!” murmured Jesse W.

“Why, those are not men talking,” laughed Dick.

“They aren’t!” exclaimed Billy.

“Mebby dat am all imagination, sah!” added Bucephalus.

“What is it if it isn’t men!” asked Ben.

“Parrots!” laughed Jack.  “Don’t you remember, you fellows, what we told you happened to us the other day when we were ashore together, Dick and I?”

“H’m! and I forgot all about it,” chuckled Billy.

“Oh, that’s different!” said J.W., greatly relieved.

“Parrots?” asked Ben.  “Poll parrots?  Well, I’ll be keelhauled!”

“Mah we ‘d!  Ah knowed parrots could talk an’ use de mos’ obstreperous vocabulary at dat,” declared the negro cook, “but Ah done suspected dat dey was men, fo’ shuah Ah did.”