Mat Turnby laughed, albeit somewhat uneasily.
“The knife?” he said. “Lord, what’s a knife to a man who holds one of these?” He pulled a heavy flintlock pistol out of a pocket in the voluminous skirts of the sleeveless and brightly coloured coat which he wore over a rough homespun guernsey and held it on the palm of his open hand.
“A precious great deal when the hand that holds the knife is Black’erchief Dick’s,” he said.
Mat Turnby laughed again contemptuously.
“Are you flesh and good red blood, or mud and pond slime, that you fear the foolish word of a Spanish sot? I tell you no knife held in a mortal hand can stand against a bullet from this.”
“Ay, in a mortal hand,” said he of the blanket, fearfully looking behind him.
The big sailor swore.
“Lord,” he said, “I knew not that I had come aboard a ship manned with a crew of beldames. I tell you this great captain of yours would be laid as flat as Mersea mud with one little lead ball from this.”
He stroked the pistol lovingly.