“You may tell him,” said McGovern grimly, “to go to hell. What’s that noise up there? A fight?”
“Yes, sar,” said the Persian mournfully. “That are captain, sar. He are still fight.”
An inarticulate bellow arose above the crashing of bodies and thudding of feet above-decks. Bumps, blows, howls and crashings told that the Skipper was putting up a beautiful scrap, but the absence of revolver shots at once explained the length of the battle and foretold its ending.
The ending came suddenly. There was a monstrous crash that suggested that one of the flimsy partitions on the Kingston had given way. A howl of anguish and a roar of rage, and suddenly the scrap stopped.
“Tapped him on the head like they did me,” said McGovern gloomily. “God forgie us, what a mess!”
And he lay still to contemplate the future of a white merchant marine officer held on board a Persian Gulf pirate ship to mend the engines if they broke.
Tied up in his cabin a couple of hours later, McGovern dismally revised his estimate of a phrase Molly Grover had first used.
“The Skipper knows best,” she’d said firmly. “And I won’t marry you unless he says so.”