"Why don't you send them back to us?" I asked.
"Send 'em back? I daren't; my life isn't worth an hour's purchase now, and they'd never let me. They'd kill them first, and me too. I don't run this show—not really; it's run by some of those Chinese mandarins—two or three of those who've just been in here. They think that as long as Hobbs and his daughter are in their hands they can get theer ransom, and that your old fool bull dog of a Skipper don't dare touch them. They want me to marry the girl—to make it more certain."
"We thought that you were trying to marry her," I said stupidly.
"That's nothing to do with it—nothing to do with you," he jerked out very fiercely.
"If your fool Captain will run his head up against us, I shall have to marry her to save her life and mine too."
"That's what those fat, oily-looking beasts want to do, and want me to do; and those other bloodthirsty rascals want to cut their throats and have done with them, say they've only brought us trouble, and wish to get back to their old established pirate business," he added, sneering.
"I've got them in the only strong walled house in the town, and I've got a hundred of my best men to guard them, but I can't trust 'em."
"If I'm caught I hang," he began shouting—I really thought that he'd forgotten me—"and if she knows that it will save my life, I believe she will marry me. If things go wrong I go, and directly I go, you all go—Hobbs and all of you, and the poor girl too" (he clenched his hands across his forehead). "We've the scum of the Yangste here. They'd cut my throat for a cent if I left off being useful to them, and they'll cut all your throats for pure devilment."
He sank down on a chair and stared in front of him.
I had dropped my spoon and was very frightened.