“If you have been so much and so mighty in your time, then you understand that a captain takes orders from nobody when he's on board his own vessel.”
“I understand perfectly well, sir. I'm not giving orders. But my own life is worth something to me and I have a right to tell you that you are taking foolhardy chances. And you know it, too!”
Captain Candage's gaze shifted. He was a coaster and he was naturally cautious, as Apple-treers are obliged to be. He knew perfectly well that he was in the presence of a man who knew! He had not the assurance to dispute that man, though his general grudge against all the world at that moment prompted him.
“I got out because they drove me out,” he growled.
“A man can't afford to be childish when he is in command of a vessel, sir. You are too old a skipper to deny that.”
“I was so mad I didn't stop to smell weather,” admitted the master, bracing himself to meet a fresh list of the heeling Polly. He evidently felt that he ought to defend his own sagacity and absolve himself from mariner's culpability.
“Very well! Let it go at that! But what are you going to do?”
“I can't beat back to Saturday Cove against this wind—not now! She would rack her blamed old butts out.”
“Then run her for Lumbo Reach. You can quarter a following sea. She ought to ride fairly easy.”
“That's a narrow stab in a night as black as this one is.”