“Try it and see. What’s two hundred pound and the loot of a bark, as against a winter’s stock o’ furs? A poor gamble, Cap’n Deakin. My men would give you as good as they got.”
Deakin’s teeth shone through his beard, and his eyes smouldered darkly. “I’ll swallow no such tale of a south sea passage. H’m! You’ve not been i’ the bay before, neither; but what about Frontin, your lieutenant—eh? Ay, I’ve heard of that French pirate! And sink me, but that explains it well enough, that does!”
“Explains what?” asked Crawford, somewhat astonished by these heavy ruminations.
“Your being here. No doubt Frontin caught some thread o’ the tale; likely, the French Company’s men heard it from the redskins. And you’re just fool enough to go look into it. Fool! H’m! You and your star—honest enough in that folly, too! Ye did wrong to show me that star, for I have a nose to scent with. Warlock, that’s what ye are, and I can see it all now. You have heard the tale, but so have I.”
“Eh?” Crawford was suddenly alert, as the dog who scents unseen game. “What tale?”
“The Star Woman, o’ course!”
With an air of irritated finality, as though he had found the answer to a troublous problem, Deakin lifted his mug and drained it. He banged down the pewter, licked his hairy lips, grunted savagely. Then he continued, his gaze fastened on Crawford.
“Ay, the Star Woman! Makes ye jump, eh? I’ve guessed it, sure enough. Little you know of her, though; while I’ve seen her—if not in the flesh, then otherwise. No white man has seen her in the flesh, and few enough o’ the red devils; oh, ye cunning liar! It’s not nor’west that you’re seeking, but west and south. Well, whilst French and English are there, neither you nor I will do much looking in that direction. Dost know there’s a host of ships behind us in the straits, icebound?”
“Ships?” repeated Crawford, catching swiftly at the more essential news despite his amazed wonder at the man’s talk of the Star Woman. “How d’ye know?”
“Why, I saw them, as I saw the Star Woman. French ships o’ the line, English frigates—bah! Come up on deck and talk in the open air. Plague upon this stuffy cabin!”