Presently Ward spoke. "And how," said he, "did you come to get into such a pickle as I found you, sir?"
I told him the main reason for my visit in as few words and with as little circumlocution as possible; how I had entertained hopes of procuring a promise of safety for my passengers and ship's crew, and even possibly of obtaining some means of transportation from the place where they now were to one of greater ease and security. Both men listened without a word to what I said, and when I had ended Ward pursed his mouth up in a most comical fashion, and gave a great long whistle, half under his breath, regarding me the while with his one eye as round as a saucer.
"And do you mean to say," says he, "that you, a sick man, have gone and travelled ten leagues all for to give yourself up to such a gang of bloody cutthroats as we be?"
"Why, yes," says I; "sure ten leagues is not such a long journey that one need make much of a stir about it."
"Ten leagues be blowed!" says he. "Suppose they had shot you dead when they had found out who you were; what then?"
"But they did not shoot me," said I.
"But perhaps they may kill you yet," put in England.
"That matter is neither in your hands nor mine," said I.
Ward looked in a very droll manner, first at England and then at me. "Well, I'm blowed!" he said at last.
At this Captain England burst into a great loud laugh. "Why," says he, "it would be a vast pity to let a man of such spirit lose his life after all. What d'ye say, Ward?"