“’Tis no honor that I seek, señor,” said I, giving him smile for smile, “but the satisfaction of a small personal grievance which may be righted quickly. And though your bulk is fit enough for my metal, your manner pleases me not;” for it galled me that he should continue to speak of me as a pirato upon my own command; and my blood boiled at the thought of what he had attempted to work upon the Sieur de la Notte and Mademoiselle.
“My thews may please you even less, Sir Adventurer. Mark you this,”—and leaning over, he took from one of the guns a chocking quoin of hickory-wood banded with copper. Seizing it in his hands he placed it between his knees for a better purchase and, bending forward quickly, with a mighty wrench, he split it in two parts as one would split an apple; whereat I was greatly surprised, and knew for certain that I had no ordinary giant to deal with. But I held and still hold, that like most of such feats, it was but a trick and come of long practise. I might have shown him, had I wished, the breaking of a pike-staff with a hand-width grasp; for in this there is no great skill but only honest elbow sinew. Yet I had no humor to put him on his guard against me.
Some of my surprise may have noted itself in my face, for he laughed boastfully as he threw the quoin upon the deck. “So will I split you,—if your humor is unchanged.”
I laughed back in his face.
“If your quoins are as rotten as your ship, I fear you not. To-morrow we make the coast. To-night, if it meets your convenience we will meet upon the fore-castle.”
“As you will,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders, “yet I have warned you. And if blood be spilled by accident——”
“It will not be mine! Until then, señor,” and bowing, I made my way below to inquire if Mademoiselle wished for anything.