Blueneck shut his eyes and waited during three seconds of horrible suspense. Then he felt the light beating on his eyelids, and heard a cracked human voice very near him say:
“Oh! ye would be spying on me, would ye, ye hell-traitor?”
The words reassured Blueneck more than perhaps anything else would have done and he opened his eyes. The terrible old face was very near his own, and hot spirit-tainted breath blew into his nostrils, but what fixed his attention was the glitter of steel above the figure’s head.
Blueneck rose to the situation now that he was assured of the old woman’s mortality (he decided that it must be an old woman). He was not the man to be frightened of a knife other than his captain’s.
“Pity a poor sailor; so stiff with the cold that his legs will not bear him,” he moaned, in a pitiful pleading whine.
The old woman laughed horribly.
“You don’t catch birds like Pet Salt with chaff, hell-rat,” she said.
“Pet Salt!” Blueneck began to understand. “Mistress,” he said, “what are you about?”
“Killing a spying knave,” was the reply, and the blade descended until its point pricked his throat.
Things were turning out more seriously than Blueneck had expected, and he spoke quickly.