BIMBO (checking them)
Let be! Put her in her chair.
(They swing her away from her father.)
ROBERT (springing up as they lay hands upon her)
Let her alone! I’ll——
(He stops, finding the Deaf-and-Dumb Man close beside him, grinning, and with a bare cutlass in his hand. The other two pirates put Lydia into her chair, where she continues to sob.)
BIMBO (resuming his seat at the table, glances at his ledger, then addresses Driscoll)
How many barrels of molasses have you got in that ship o’ yours?
DRISCOLL
Wretch!
(The Gunner and the Man with the Braided Beard again growl menacingly.)
BIMBO (again checks them)
Let be, I say! (To Driscoll.) How many barrels of rum? Fourteen dozen o’ rum, isn’t it?
DRISCOLL (fiercely)
You bloody-minded villain! I’m as well-known on ’Change in London as the Duke o’ Marlb’ro is at Blenheim! You’ll see Execution Dock for this; I swear it!
BIMBO (warningly)
You have a care when and where you speak of swearing. (Looking at the ledger.) I make it sixteen score molasses, fourteen dozen rum, seventeen hogshead Jamaica cured tobacco, thirteen hundred sixty bushel of grain or thereabouts, mildewed and part useless; the tobacco of poor quality and the molasses dirty. (He closes the ledger disgustedly.) There’s a fine cargo for you! I hazard there’s not seventy pounds value that’s worth our keeping. And yet landsmen say we have an easy profession and envy us.
THE GUNNER
Aye; they think all we have to do is overhaul a ship and carry away big chests o’ gold and jewels.
BIMBO
Jewels! (Laughs hollowly.) We hain’t a jewel this twelvemonth. (Angrily to Driscoll.) Do you know what we’ve got from the last seven ships we’ve taken? Fish! Salt fish! And if there’s one thing we don’t need it’s fish.
THE GUNNER (violently)
I hate fish!