"Ja, I go."
My great-uncle's reply was a shrug of indifference, and Peter and I climbed after him to the deck. The noise of revelry stopped dead as he appeared, but the visible evidence of it was plain to see on every hand. A cask of rum with the head knocked out stood by the foot of the mainmast. There was a pool of blood on the deck-planking by the fo'csle companionway, and a pallid-cheeked fellow was binding up his arm in a dirty headcloth and spitting oaths at another man who composedly wiped his knife clean on a frowsy coil of rope. Fore and aft men had been gaming, drinking, quarreling and singing—and all abruptly halted whatever they were doing to stare at us.
Murray returned their stares with an undisguised repugnance which I discovered myself to share. The Walrus was a revelation after the ordered discipline of the Royal James. In a word, she was pig-dirty. Her deck was littered with all kinds of rubbish; her rigging was slack and spliced in a fashion which seemed lubberly to me, who was a lubber; her canvas was torn, poorly patched and wretchedly furled; boats, barrels, lumber, spare spars and cables lay about in entire confusion. The planks we trod on were slippery with grease. The paint was peeling from the bulwarks. There were spots of rust on the muzzle of a chase gun, which itself was hauled out of its proper position.
Flint came swaggering down to us from the poop in a condition which was in harmony with his surroundings. Like most of his men, he had discarded coat, shirt, stockings and shoes to accommodate himself to the heat of a tropical Summer. His loose canvas trousers, identical with those the seamen wore, were streaked with dirt and tar. His bare calves and forearms were covered with dried blood where they had been scratched by brambles in his shore expeditions; out of the matted hair on his chest was thrust the head of a tiger, most marvelously tattooed in black and yellow. His hair was a lank frame for his saturnine face, stubbly with a week's growth of beard.
Sure, the contrast was as sharp betwixt him and my great-uncle, immaculate in figured black satin, hair sprucely dressed, as betwixt the two ships. He sensed it himself.
"What d'ye seek, Murray?" he growled. "Come to look us over?"
"I am come to fulfil my contract with you," replied my great-uncle. "I am sailing with the morning ebb, and I bring you, not one hostage, but two."
Flint stepped closer and scrutinized Peter and me.
"Two, eh? What do I want wi' two? What good's this fat man to me? He means nothing to you."
"On the contrary," denied my relative. "Master Corlaer is an old and valued enemy of mine, of whom I have hopes of making in time a friend."