"Come up, Darby," I invited him.
But he shook his head vigorously, so I crossed to his side.
"What is ailing you?" I asked.
"Sorra a trouble in the whole of creation," he returned in his rich brogue. "But I'd walk my two feet over the galley-stove as soon as stand so near the old devil as yourself, Master Bob. My troth, he's the terrible cruel feller, and him that ancient old he'd oughter been waked these many years past."
"He's no more to be feared than Flint," I answered, laughing.
"Ah, there's little ye know to be saying the like of that!" exclaimed Darby. "With Flint 'tis a blow and a curse and 'take it or leave it!' But him! He'd put the evil eye on the lot of us if the notion but came into the head of him."
"I rather be his friend than his enemy," I admitted. "Do they fear him so aboard the Walrus?"
Darby squinted sideways at me.
"Whiles they fear him. And then again when the rum is flowing— But I'll be saying what maybe I'll be sorry for later. I see ye found the elegant young maid that went to the Whale's Head with ye. My faith, ain't she the pretty creature! Will she be a pirate, too?"
"No more than Peter and me."