"Don't ye look at me that way, Gonzalez," he would scream. "Here, Bill, what kind o' shipmate are you to be lettin' old Ross in here wi' his bloody throat?"
And then he would turn pious.
"Ah, now, mother, ye'd not ha' me bide home all my days like a baby, would ye? Look at these gold jos. Ain't they pretty? I'll wager ye ain't got a friend as has a son can fetch her stuff the like o' that! No, no; don't ye ask no questions. Oh, dear Christ, what a pain I got! God, God, don't ye let me go this way. I'll build a chapel home to Tewkesbury when I find Murray's cache. A million and a half pounds, God; aye, that and more—and just you 'n' me to share it, wi' some for Bill Bones and Darby, as is a good lad and lucky."
He babbled childishly of his luck.
"Ye wouldn't break my luck, God! Oh, Ye wouldn't! There never was none like John Flint to rove the seas, John Flint as outwitted old Murray and was the end of him."
The droning voice would ramble on day and night, with intervals of exhausted sleep, punctuated by awful, explosive screams:
"Ho, Darby! Darby McGraw! Fetch aft the rum, Darby!"
And again:
"I'm a-burnin' in my guts, Darby. Ye wouldn't leave me to burn. Fetch me a noggin o' rum!"
Other times he would sing, and always the one song that had been my introduction to his company: