"Rascals as thorough as you, Silver, would never leave an opportunity like that. 'Tis true I have had no sea-service, but I have fought with the savages upon our northern frontier.
"I'll not move until I see a clear path before me."
He laughed uproariously at this.
"Now that 'ere's a good joke on me! Might ha' knowed you wasn't as open as your face. You'll learn fast, you will, Master Ormerod. I'll lay four spade-guineas to that. Bear over just a p'int, Ezra, matey. Aye, so!"
"Is that foretops'l drawin' full, John?" asked the man with the green eye-shade in a voice that was singularly soft.
Silver squinted aloft.
"She'll do," he decided.
"Would you mind telling me how a blind man can steer?" I inquired.
The man with the green eye-shade chuckled in a way to chill your blood, so sardonic, so overpoweringly evil was the caliber of the mirth it suggested.
"A poor, blind man has to earn his bread and 'backy somehow, young sir," he answered unctuously.