“Only what I’ve sayed,” rejoins the Sydney Duck. “If you weesh, I can say it over ’gain. That theer yellow stuff shud be measured out to the crew o’ this craft share and share alike, even hands all roun’ without respectin’ o’ parsons. An’, by God! it shall be so deevided—shall, will, an’ must.”
“Yes!” endorses Davis, with like emphatic affirmation.
“It shall, and it must!”
“Pe gar, most it!” adds the Frenchman; followed in the same strain by Stronden the Dane, and Van Houton the Dutchman, chorused by Old Tarry and Slush.
“It an’t no use your stannin’ out, masters,” continues Striker, addressing himself to the two Spaniards. “Ye see the majority’s against ye; an’ in all cases o’ the kind, wheresomever I’ve seed ’em, the majority means the right. Besides, in this partickler case we’re askin’ no moren’ what’s right—refarrin’ to the job afore us. I’m willin’ to conceed, that you Spanish chaps hev hed most to do wi’ the first plannin’ o’ the thing; as alser, that ye brought the rest o’ us into it. But what signify the bringin’ in compared wi’ the gettin’ out? In sich scrapes, ’taint the beginnin’ but the eend as is dangersome. An’ we’ve all got to unnergo that danger; the which I needn’t particklarly speak o’, as every man o’ ye must feel it ’bout the nape o’ his neck, seein’ the risk he’ll hev to run o’ gettin’ that streetched. It’s eequil all roun’, and tharfor the reward for runnin’ it shed be eequil too. So say Jack Striker.”
“So I, and I, and I,” echo the others; all save Padilla and Velarde, who remain silent and scowling.
“Yis,” continues Striker, “an’ theer be one who ’ant present among us, as oughter have his share too. I don’t mean either Mr Gomez or Hernandez. Them two shud be contented, seein’ as they’re more after the weemen than the money, an’ nobody as I know o’ carin’ to cut ’em out there. It’s true him I refer to hez come into the thing at the ’leventh hour, as ye may say—after ’twar all planned. But he mote a gied us trouble by stannin’ apart. Tharfore, I say, let’s take him in on shares wi’ the rest.”
“Whom are you speaking of?” demands Padilla.
“I needn’t tell ye,” responds the senior of the Sydney Ducks! “If I an’t mistook, that’s him a comin’ down, an’ he can speak for hisself.”
At the words, a footstep is heard upon the forecastle stair. A pair of legs is seen descending; after them a body—the body of Harry Blew!