Brander said: "Do as you like, sir. I think you should let him stay. He means no harm...."
Noll waved his hand. "Oh, a'right," he agreed. "Say no more 'bout it at all. Let be. Keep'm; keep'm, Mr. Brander. But lis'en." He eyed Brander shrewdly. "Lis'en. I know one thing. He's goin' to knife me some night. I know. He's a murd'rer. And you're defending him.... Pr'tecting him. Birds of a feather flock t'gether, Mr. Brander." The captain got unsteadily to his feet, raised a threatening hand. "When he kills me; just r'member. My blood's on your own head, sir."
Brander hesitated; his heart revolted. His impulse was to leave the ship, take Mauger, trust his luck.... But he thought of Faith. This man, her husband, was dying.... He could see that. And when he was gone, there would be trouble aboard the Sally. Faith herself meant trouble; the ambergris in the captain's storeroom meant more trouble.... Brander knew it might well be that Faith would need him in that day.... He could not leave her....
He said quietly: "I take that responsibility, sir."
Noll was slumped in his chair again. "Go 'way," he said, and waved his hand. "Go 'way."
That night, in the small hours, Noll screamed in a way that woke the ship; he had come out of drunken slumber, desperate with a vivid hallucination that appalled him....
He thought that Mauger was at him with a sheath knife, and that Brander was at Mauger's back. Faith and Dan'l fought to soothe him; Faith in her loose dressing-gown, her hair in its thick braid.... Dan'l had more eyes for Faith than for Noll. He had never seen her thus before; never seen her so beautiful; never seen her, he thought, so desperately to be desired.... His lips were wet at the sight of her....
Noll's terror racked and tore at the man; it seemed to rip the very flesh from his bones. When it passed, at last, and he fell asleep again, he was wasted like a corpse.
Dan'l, looking at Noll and at Faith, wished Noll were a corpse indeed.