Question

So some of the cheefe of the company, perceiveing the mariners to faare the suffisiencie of the shipe, as appeared by their mutterings, they entred into serious consulltation with the mr and other officers of the ship, to consider in time of the danger; and rather to returne then to cast them selves into a desperate and inevitable perill.

If the word mutterings were replaced with the word conversations, how would the meaning of the excerpt change?