“I’ll approve of it when we’re safe home again, and the ship’s accounts passed. Now, Mr. Perrin, I’m a man of peace, I am. I don’t uphold going in for trouble. There’s trouble enough on all men’s tallies. But what you’re going to do beats me.”
Perrin murmured a mild assent. The pirate’s vehemence generally frightened him.
“Look here, now, Mr. Perrin,” the captain went on. “One gentleman to another, now. Here am I sailing-master. I’m to navigate this ship to Virginia, and then to another port to be named when we leave England. I don’t know what you want me to do, do I, James? Well, then, can’t you give me a quiet hint, like, so I’ll know when to shoot? If you don’t like that, well, you’re my employers, you needn’t. But don’t blame me if trouble comes. You’re going to the Main. Oh, don’t start; I’ve got eyes, sir. Now I know the Main; you don’t. Nor you don’t know seamen. All you know is a lot of town pimps skipping around like burnt cats. Here now, Mr. Perrin, fair and square. Are you going on the account?”
“As pirates?”
“As privateers.”
“Well, you see, captain,” said Perrin, “it’s like this. Captain Margaret. I don’t know. You know that, in Darien, the Spaniards—they—they—they drove out the Indians very brutally.”
Captain Cammock smiled, as though pleased with a distant memory.
“Oh, them,” he said lightly.
“Well,” continued Perrin. “You’d have been told to-day, anyhow; so it doesn’t much matter my telling you now. What he wants to do is this. He wants to get in with the Indians there, and open up a trade; keeping back the Spaniards till the English are thoroughly settled. Then, when we are strong enough, to cut in on the Spanish treasure-trains, like Sir Francis Drake did. But first of all, our aim is to open up a trade. Gold dust.”
Captain Cammock’s face grew serious. He gazed, with unseeing eyes, at the swans in the reach.