"It had been long brewing, as ye know," answered the carpenter's mate. "These men with you in the snow 'ud sooner follow Ned Rackham, flint-hearted though he be, than to rejoin the Revenge."
"Not so loud," cautioned the coxswain. "We'll see which way the cat is going to jump. Us poor devils is sore uneasy at findin' how you were dealt with."
"What of the master and crew of the snow?" asked Tobey. "Were they snuffed out? That 'ud be Rackham's way."
"No, we set 'em off in a boat, within sight of the coast. Ned Rackham was too shrewd to bloody his hands, bein' helpless in this tub of a snow which could neither fight nor show her heels if she was chased."
Few men as there were aboard the snow, they were smartly disciplined and kept things shipshape, as Peter Tobey noted when he climbed on deck. A few minutes later he was summoned into the small cabin. Propped up in the skipper's berth, Sailing-Master Ned Rackham had a pinched and ghastly look. He was a young man, with clean-cut, handsome features, and a certain refinement of manner when he cared to assume it. The rumor was that he was the black sheep of an English house of some distinction and that he had enlisted in the Royal Navy under a false name.
"What is this mare's-nest, my good Tobey?" said he as the carpenter's mate stood diffidently fumbling with his cap. "Marooned? Twenty men of you on a reef of sand? Were ye naughty boys whilst I was absent?"
"No more than them I could name who planned to go a-cruisin' in the Plymouth Adventure," doggedly replied Peter Tobey who resented the tone of sneering patronage.
"Fie, fie! You talk boldly for a man in your situation. Never mind! Why the honor of this visit?"
"To make terms, Master Rackham. If us twenty men consent to serve you——"
"You babble of terms?" was the biting interruption. "I can leave you to perish on the sand, as ye no doubt deserve, or I can carry you in with me, when I report to Captain Teach."