“Not much, by the look of it,” retorted Mr Dawkins. “You say I stole the ship. I say I didn’t, nor I haven’t. I was elected captain—you helped elect me, you two, ’long of the others. I’m captain still. What are you? Deserters, I reckon. If you was to come aboard, I’d clap you in irons, and no mistake about it. Now, then! What next? You’ll tell me I stole a cargo of silver, I shouldn’t wonder, like young jackanapes in the corner there, what’s grandson to Cap’n Morgan. Grandson, says he! Ho, ho!”
At this, Brandon advised Mr Dawkins, in forcible terms, to keep a civil tongue in his head.
“Why, what now?” cried the injured Dawkins. “A man may speak, I should hope! One would think Cap’n Morgan’s grandson was a young lady what couldn’t defend herself, to hear you. But there, Mr Pomfrett, you got the weather-gauge, as I say, and you can give your orders. Go on, sir. I’ll give my best attention.”
But Pomfrett was somewhat at a loss. Perceiving, for the first time, how strong a case Dawkins could make out in his own defence, Pomfrett sat uncomfortably silent. Old Dawkins grinned at him.
“You got me here by treach’ry, Mr Pomfrett,” says he, “and I reckon ’tis no use asking for a fair hearing in full council aboard the Blessed Endeavour. I ain’t a fool. I know what you want—you want to see me a-drying in the sun at Execution Dock, while you takes all the cash and all the credit too. And very natural, I’m sure. On’y, how are you a-going to do it?”
Still Brandon sat silent. Morgan Leroux gazed at him intently, anxiously. He was contending with his scruples; the civilised conventions which would prevent his fighting a man like Dawkins with his own weapons. Was he, at the dictates of scrupulosity, to let the thief go free, because he was his guest, and so forfeit all his owners’ fortune, and the fortune of Morgan Leroux likewise? For a minute or two, I believe the notion presented itself to Brandon Pomfrett in the alluring light of an heroical sacrifice, such as you read of in books. But common men in common life must act as they can, not as they would, and the truth that Dawkins had taken to his heart in infancy Brandon was to recognise now—just in time.
“Dawkins,” says he, in a hard, sharp voice, that caused the old pirate to look up with a start, “I’ve just two words to say to you. Give me sixfold compensation for having sold us as slaves—that’s six hundred pieces of eight for each, you know; give me back the ship and all that’s in her, resign command in my favour in full council of officers, and you shall go free.”
Morgan Leroux, sitting silent in the corner, clapped her hands.
Dawkins’s tufted eyebrows climbed his forehead, and he looked at the young captain with a queer expression of mingled dismay and admiration.
“Spoken like a gentleman o’ fortune, by the bones of the deep!” says he. “Blest if I thought you had it in you, Mr Supercargo. Very good, commander. And what if I refuse this here modest proposal?”