"I will ask you to cease doubting it. Now, how many men would it require, to get Artemis home to Boston?"
"God!... Three or four hands could do it somehow." He sounded calmer. Glancing at him again, Ben found his face no less a battlefield, even more perhaps, but it had grown sharp with intelligence. "On such a thing as that, Mr. Cory, you'd be obliged to play it timid, understand me? Reef in at the first hint of dirty weather, if you'll take an old seaman's word for it. Comes fast, do you see? You remember we rode out a bad one off Grenada last year, and it was all hands hop to it, and even then it near-about caught us. Now imagine two or three men trying to get her snug in the time we did it then! Remember you got to keep one at the helm. All the same—all the same, sir, three or four hands could do it. That—is your intention?"
"It's my intention to try. What about Dummy?"
"Shawn's dog. Jack's another dog, a mad one."
"That's mostly show, I think. It makes others let him alone."
"Maybe, but don't trust him, Mr. Cory. He's not—with us."
"Manuel?"
"Can neither fight nor hold his tongue.... If you—if we can take care of Shawn and the others, you would release the Captain?"
"Certainly."
"Then I ... Mr. Cory, I'll beg you for your word on a—on two things, if I may."