"His reason! He was brought aboard a captive, that or be drowned."
"That was the seeming," said Shawn, rubbing his coin, looking gravely down with the sun behind him, his eyes all black. "Yet Barentsz could have gone with the others. They thought (not understanding the end I serve) that I would give them a boat. But no, this Barentsz chose to make a show of favoring my enterprise, so to deceive me and get himself aboard my ketch. Then soon enough, hearing what he muttered under his breath, I understood why."
"I could make nothing of what he tried to say in English."
"That's no matter."
"Do you speak Dutch?"
"Enough."
"Well?"
"You wouldn't care to say 'Well, sir?' or 'Well, Captain?'"
"Well, Shawn?"
"How you do play with your own life, the way it might be a thing of no value!"