"Too many reefs to pile ourselves on—and Hamilton is a port o' call for the King's ships."
"Them's the very words I said myself!" exclaimed Silver. "And what would ye say to Savannah, cap'n, which same is a quiet spot and has no garrison, seein' as Georgy is the newest o' all the colonies in Ameriky?"
Flint reached down to the deck beside him and lifted a bottle of rum to his mouth, going through the usual performance of draining it at one colossal gulp to the considerable admiration of the crew.
"Aaa-aah," he muttered, wiping his lips with the back of his hand. "Savannah, eh? That might do. But mind ye, men, I'll ha' no talk o' disbandment there or elsewhere. We'll stop by to clean up the fever and water, and when that's done we'll square off south and collect what's comin' to us on the Dead Man's Chest. I'm a man o' my word!"
Silver made quick assent.
"Fairly put. And the while we're lyin' off Savannah the frigates will be a-wearin' themselves out on false scents. It works both ways, cap'n."
"It'll work my way," rapped Flint.
He slid off the barrel, balanced dizzily for a moment and walked into the companionway under the poop.
"Darby McGraw!" he called harshly. "Ho, Darby, fetch aft the rum."
That night he had another of his fits, declaring that Andrew Murray was come aboard to slay him. He chased Bones from the cabin, hanger in hand, and was for setting upon the watch on deck when Darby restrained him with a bottle of rum, asserting it to contain Murray's heart's blood. Flint tossed it off with howls of infernal glee and retired to snore on the cabin floor, twitching and foaming at the mouth in his slumber like one possessed. The next day as we rolled in the oily swell under a torrid sun with the pitch pricking up in bubbles from the seams, the fever laid its hot hand upon him.