“Well, you see, commander, I was elected in full council. There’s no getting away from that. And the officers, they wouldn’t understand a new arrangement, d’ye see; they’d want a explanation. And then, d’ye see, if you was to give ’em what you might call your explanation, they mightn’t—I don’t say they wouldn’t—but they mightn’t believe you, captain. It ain’t,” said Mr Dawkins, piously, “that I want to put myself forward—you see that, don’t you, commander?—it’s on’y what’s best to be done for all parties consarned.”
We looked at each other in silence. There was no doubt about it—Dawkins dead was more dangerous than Dawkins living; since, if he lived, we had but to reckon with himself alone; but if he were removed, perils multiplied at every step. The old rascal had the weather-gauge of us, after all. We looked at each other. It was Morgan Leroux who broke into a peal of laughter, and suddenly we were all laughing; we laughed until the tears came, all except Mr Dawkins, who sat with his big, scarred hands loosely clasped on the table in front of him, gazing at us with a face of wood. His gravity was like a reproof. We turned serious again as suddenly as we had broken into mirth.
“Well, gentlemen, what’s it to be?” said Dawkins. “Hang me and put your heads in a hornets’ nest, or call me Captain Dawkins and sail to England as safe and easy as the Lord High Admiral in a blessed ship-o’-the-line?”
“Why, really, Mr Dawkins,” began Pomfrett, “I think you should offer some sort of security, just as a matter of form, you know, that we shan’t be hove overboard, or marooned on the next island.”
“Security? Why, I’ll do what I can. I’ll give you what I got. I can’t do no more,” said Dawkins. “Gratitude, now, gratitude for saving me a hanging, what d’ye say to that, commander, for a sheet-anchor to wind’ard?”
“No; won’t do,” said Brandon. “I’ve got to set twice six hundred pieces of eight, a cargo of silver, and a tall ship against that item. Try again.”
“Fear of committing sin?” suggested Dawkins.
“No.”
“Fear of the law, then?”
“No; there’s not enough of that commodity south of the Line, Mr Dawkins.”