One hand barely touched his sword-hilt.
"I trust there will be no occasion for me to repeat the warning," he remarked.
Flint's baffled rage was comic to behold.
"Aye, you and your fine gentleman ways!" he choked. "I know ye! Gut me if I'll support it to be swindled thus. A woman and strangers aboard! And eight hundred thousand pounds missing! 'Safely disposed of,' says you! I'll warrant. Safe where you can collar it any time you please. I knowed it as soon as I marked the flutter of a petticoat. A woman and gold——"
Long John Silver swung himself up on to the poop from the head of the port ladder and stamped toward us.
"Beggin' your pardon, Cap'n Murray, sir!" His pleasant voice broke through Flint's diatribe.
"My duty, Master Ormerod. And Master Corlaer, too. Like old times, ain't it, gentlemen, all of us together? I hopes as how ye'll overlook my boldness, Cap'n Murray, but I ha' a word to speak to Cap'n Flint—fo'csle council, sir."
My great-uncle took another pinch of snuff.
"Ah, yes," he observed drily. "I recall that aboard the Walrus the fo'csle council must be heard. I trust that you can instil some common sense into your captain's head. He hath need of it, Silver."
Flint glared, but Silver snatched whatever reply he intended out of his mouth.