Black Pawl laughed aloud. “Fiddle, man!” he cried. “I’ve had knives in every inch of me, back and front. They no more than let a little blood.”
“Red Pawl would rather they let out a little life,” said Flexer.
Black Pawl flung the warning aside. “Even Red can’t always have his d’ruthers,” he replied.
“There is the minister,” Flexer urged. “And—there is the girl. They shipped with you, on your ship—not Red Pawl’s. And even if they had not, even if they were strangers ashore, even then, Black Pawl, it would be for you to guard against this son of yours.”
“Did I not curb him in the cabin?”
“I tell you no. I tell you there is death in his eye, for you; and worse for them.”
“For her?”
“For her.”
Black Pawl twisted away. “And why not?” he demanded. “Why is she better than another woman, to be so guarded? Let her take life, rough as it comes, as others do.”
Flexer looked in his captain’s eye; and there was flat condemnation in his gaze. Before his eyes the Captain’s fell.