“I don’t like him,” said the captain one evening at dinner.
“Nor I,” said Reginald.
“I say, cap,” said Mr Hall, “I’d maroon a fellow like that! If you don’t, mark my words, he will give us trouble yet.”
And he did, as the sequel will show.
Chapter Thirteen.
The Breakdown—Savages!
Captain Dickson was just as kind to Norman, the Finn, as he was to anyone else. Perhaps more so. Not that he dreaded him. Dickson would have shot him with as little compunction as shooting a panther had he given him even a mutinous answer. But he often let him have double allowance of rum. “You’re a big man,” he would say; “you need a little more than the little ones.”
Norman would smile grimly, but swallow it. He would even buy the men’s, for he seemed to have plenty of money. When half-seas-over Norman would swagger and rant and sing, and with little provocation he would have fought. The other Finns and the Spaniard, besides an Englishman or two, always took Norman’s side in an argument.