The shaggy brows drew down. “What place is it, then?”
“Whatever may be there.” Crawford coolly put his hand inside his shirt, and drew out the Star of Dreams that hung on its thong. At sight of it, Deakin’s eyes opened wide. “The star, Cap’n Deakin—my star of dreams! I follow the sign. Call it a madman’s fancy, if ye like; I seek only freedom, clear action, a chance to be myself. I’m sick of the struggle for pelf and place and power—I want a fresher world. I have goods and provisions and gold aboard the bark, and need to rob naught from other men. If others—mark it well!—think to rob me, I have teeth and can use ’em.”
“Others have teeth, for that matter,” said Moses Deakin, and those big eyes of his narrowed slightly as Crawford thrust away the star. “Blood and wounds! How d’ye expect me to believe such a tale? Who comes into these seas, but for furs?”
“I do, for one,” was the cool response. “You have reason—use it! If I wanted loot, what easier than to take your ship? Then to seek that hidden trading post of yours and loot it. But that’s nonsense—we have no quarrel. Here’s what I want of you: Is it true, as pilots say, that from the northwest of this bay a passage leads to the south seas?”
Deakin frowned upon his questioner. His eyes glimmered in a way that Crawford misliked; they glinted with suspicion, with crafty search, with a slow and heavy pondering.
“Not to my knowledge,” he made answer at length, “and I should know if any man does. Last year the French ships drove me far up to the nor’west, where I talked with Injuns. This folly of a south sea passage means naught.”
So positive was Deakin’s tone, so filled with assured conviction were his words, that Crawford could not but feel in this moment that he had been following a false trail. Deakin should know—that was true. If Deakin said no passage existed, then it might well be accepted as a fact.
While Crawford puffed in frowning silence, however, Deakin now continued with an abrupt change of topic and manner.
“What’s to hinder me keeping you here while my men go take your ship? There’s two hundred pound for you in Boston, dead or alive. You ha’ gold aboard, and supplies that are worth more than gold in these parts. What’s to hinder, eh?”
Crawford’s thin lips emitted a thin cloud of smoke.