He signaled up a dozen or so of the nearest of his men, all of whom had been observing us with a mingling of interest and hostility.
"We'll put these knife-fighters in the lazaret for the night," he announced. "They're a desperate pair, and we'll watch 'em close until they are under hatches."
"Oh, whirra, whirra!" sobbed Darby. "Do but see what I did to ye with my tongue that wags from the middle both ways! Sure, captain darlin', ye don't need to hold against Master Bob what I said. All he seeks is to be a grand, murtherin' pirate. Troth, we talked o' nothin' else in the old days."
"Don't be foolish, Darby," I said.
And to Flint, as the group closed around us—
"Captain Murray bade you——"
"I know, I know!" he interrupted impatiently. "The treatment you receive will be whatever you earn for yourselves. I'm an easy skipper, as any man aboard the Walrus will tell ye, my lad. But you are my stakes in a rich venture, and I'll be —— —— if I take any chance on losing ye or your fat friend as goes with you. So stow your gab, and come wi' me willingly, and no blows struck or feelings injured. Tomorrow the James will ha' sailed, and then we'll deal a new hand all around."
His narrow green eyes, squinting out on either side of his thin nose, surveyed me with a kind of appraisal.
"I have an idea we may yet find interests in common," he concluded. "But that's to be seen."
Peter, at my elbow, spoke for the first time.