"Tush!" cried I. "He was a man of straw and would have run or struck to you after your first broadside! 'Twas Joanna and Resolution Day fought the ship after Belvedere was dead—"
"Ah, dead, is he? Why, very good!" said Adam, rising and seating himself at the table. "Here is yet another name for my journal. You saw him dead, Martin?" he questioned, taking up his pen.
"Most horribly! He was killed by the mate, Resolution Day—"
"Ha!" says Adam, turning to his writing. "'Tis a name sticks in my memory—a man I took out o' prison and saved from burning along with divers others, when we took Margarita—a tall, one-eyed man and scarred by the torment—?"
"'Tis the same! But, God forgive you, Adam, why must you be wasting time over your curst journal and idle talk—"
"I think, Martin! I meditate! For, if this be true indeed, we must go like
Agog—delicately—Martin—delicately!"
"Folly—oh, folly!" cried I. "Joanna may be firing the ship as you sit scribbling there, or contriving some harm to my dear lady—act, man—act!"
"As how, Martin?" he questioned, carefully sanding what he had writ.
"Seize her ere she can strike, set her fast under lock and key, have her watched continually—"
"Hum!" said Adam, pinching his chin and viewing me with his keen gaze. "If she be so dangerous as you say, why not slay her out of hand—"