“What! Mutiny, Conrad?” the captain went on, as the butler made no offer to move. “You was quicker at obeying orders in the old days, Conrad. You was a long way more spry arter I sarved you with your six dozen lashes. You become quite a handy lad arter that. Quick and handy with that ’ere clasp-knife of yourn, Conrad, when you done for the crew of the True Love what was lying on their backs off Calabar a-waiting for you to obey orders. Come, look alive, my lad, or you’ll find yourself in Bodmin Gaol, and ’tis Cap’n Swall who says so.”
Springle, cowed by the fierce intruder, gave up defiance and went to fetch the victuals.
“That’s a nice little place Conrad’s got himself,” continued Swall, with one eye cocked very wickedly at Lord Cannebrake.
“Do you want to be my butler?” demanded the latter.
“No, I wouldn’t rob Conrad. There’s room for both of us. Maybe you’ve got a snug little cabin somewhere between decks, a snug little berth where you and me and Conrad ’ll be able to talk over old times and old ships. Better you and I should talk over ’em quiet and comfortable and snug like, with the rum going round as it ought to in a genelman’s country house. Better nor talking over ’em at the Old Bailey. Why, you’ve a darter, haven’t you, Dicky? What ’ud she say if she went for a cruise down the river one lovely morning in the summer-time, and seed her father, black as a crow, swinging in the wind at Execution Dock?”
“You won’t blackmail me,” said my lord.
“Blackmail, is it? By the Lord,” shouted Captain Swall, “Black Flag’s more the lay.”
“Be careful, Matthew. You know I’m a hot-blooded man. You know I won’t stand too much.”
“Aye, by the plague, and you know mine, Dick Starling, and it ain’t lost nothing these twenty years of waiting. Look ’ee here, it comes to this. You’ve got a darter. Well.” Again he swore that fearful oath. “If you don’t give me your darter—for I won’t be put off with no fine words after Jamestown, Dicky; I’ll have something of yours as you vally—I’ll have your young maid, or you swing for piracy.”
But even while he threatened, shaking the pistol, Lord Cannebrake struck hard with his stick and Captain Swall fell forward among the glasses on the table.