The fo'csle was littered with spare cables, water-casks and other sailor's truck, which I had to avoid displacing; but I had my reward, for as I advanced the hum of voices dissolved into words and phrases.
—"a foxy 'un, Murray is," said a seaman's voice.
"And they James fellers'll fight us, whatever 'ee say," added a second.
"O' course they will!"
This was Silver's unmistakable oily speech.
"Who wouldn't fight for the grandest fortune as any gentlemen adventurers ever had a chance at?"
I wriggled behind a chase-gun, and peered over its breech into the waist. Two battle-lanthorns were suspended from the mainyard, and their yellow glare revealed the Walrus' crew squatted in serried ranks around the butt of the mainmast, where Flint, Bones, Silver and several others sat on upturned rum-barrels.
Flint leaned forward, wrathfully insistent, as I propped myself against a trunnion.
"Gut me if I thought to find such skulkers in my crew!" he snarled. "D'ye think to take any prize wi'out loss?"
"Aye," said a third seaman doggedly, "but we ha' never yet fought wi' Murray. Them as does don't ha' luck."