“I reckon you’ve got enough to do lookin’ after yerself—wi’out worrying about me, master Spaniard,” he said good-naturedly.
Blueneck shifted his position slightly.
“I reckon we git paid more than most sea-faring folk,” he said.
Mat snorted.
“Oh, yes!” he growled, “paid! We’re paid, all right, but how are we treated?”
Blueneck grinned.
“Like princes of the blood on the island,” he laughed.
“Oh! yes, on the island,” Mat’s voice rose, “but I say—on the brig? How then? Like dogs, men—like dirty, heathen, black-skinned dogs! And what I ask is, why do we do it? Are we men to be afraid of a brown-skinned, drunken little pirate of a Spaniard? Just because he owns a brig or two and smuggles as much rum in a year as any other man in the trade? What has he got about him that we should turn wenches and follow him, like the scum he thinks us? Save that he has a mighty plaguey way of turning fine words and——”
“The knife!”
The little man who had spoken huddled his blanket closer and shuddered again. The wind dropped for a moment and a tremor ran through the full sails, as though they also had shivered.