All looked toward the Old One as if awaiting his reply; and when Phil Marsham, too, looked toward him, he met such another quizzing, searching, understanding gaze as he had long ago met when he had taken the words from Martin's lips on the little hill beside the road.
"Why, I am master now, good boatswain."
"But Captain Candle—"
"His flame is out."
The lad glanced about him at the circle of hard old sea dogs—for they were all of them that, were their years few or many—and drew away till he stood with the waist at his back. Laying hands on his dirk, he said in a voice that slightly trembled, "And now?"
"Why," quoth the Old One, "you have sat in Mother Taylor's kitchen and heard talk of the gentlemen. You know too many secrets. Unless you are one of us—" He finished with a shrug.
"You ask me, then, to join you?"
"Yea."
"I refuse." He looked the Old One in the eye.
"Why, then," said the Old One, "you are the greater fool."