in the mail-boats, I guess.) Well, why you no savvy a little sooner,
sonny?"

"I think bimeby make-um reward," replied the cook, with smiling dignity.

"Well, you can't say fairer than that," the captain admitted, "and now
the reward's offered, you'll talk? Speak up, then. Suppose you speak
true, you get reward. See?"

"I think long time," replied the Chinaman. "See plenty litty mat lice;
too-muchy plenty litty mat lice; sixty ton, litty mat lice. I think
all-e-time: perhaps plenty opium plenty litty mat lice."

"Well, Mr. Dodd, how does that strike you?" asked the captain. "He may
be right, he may be wrong. He's likely to be right: for if he isn't,
where can the stuff be? On the other hand, if he's wrong, we destroy
a hundred and fifty tons of good rice for nothing. It's a point to be
considered."

"I don't hesitate," said I. "Let's get to the bottom of the thing. The
rice is nothing; the rice will neither make nor break us."

"That's how I expected you to see it," returned Nares.

And we called the boat away and set forth on our new quest.

The hold was now almost entirely emptied; the mats (of which there went
forty to the short ton) had been stacked on deck, and now crowded the
ship's waist and forecastle. It was our task to disembowel and explore
six thousand individual mats, and incidentally to destroy a hundred and