Tarboe caught at something. "You've got our man?" Gobal drank off his wine slowly. "Yes," he said. "Well?—Why don't you fetch him?"
"You can see him below."
"The man has legs, let him walk here. Hello, my Gobal, what's the matter? If he's here bring him up. We've no time to lose."
"Tarboe, the fool got smallpox, and died three hours ago—the tenth man since we started. We're going to give him to the fishes. They're putting him in his linen now."
Tarboe's face hardened. Disaster did not dismay him, it either made him ugly or humourous, and one phase was as dangerous as the other.
"D'ye mean to say," he groaned, "that the game is up? Is it all finished? Sweat o' my soul, my skin crawls like hot glass! Is it the end, eh? The beast, to die!"
Gobal's eyes glistened. He had sent up the mercury, he would now bring it down.
"Not such a beast as you think. Alive pirate, a convict, as comrade in adventure, is not sugar in the teeth. This one was no better than the worst. Well, he died. That was awkward. But he gave me the chart of the bay before he died—and that was damn square."
Tarboe held out his hand eagerly, the big fingers bending claw-like.
"Give it me, Gobal," he said.