"Don't flatter yourself, Mr. Sedgwick. I'm master here. When I give the word you will suffer."
I turned my head and my eyes fell upon Henry Fleming. He had turned white, shaken to the heart. Beyond him was Neidlinger, and the man was moistening his gray lips with his tongue. The fat cockney looked troubled. Plainly they had no stomach for the horrible work that lay before them if I proved resolute.
To fight for treasure was one thing, and I suppose that even in this they had been led to believe that a mere show of force would be sufficient; to lend their aid to torture an officer of the ship was quite another and a more sinister affair.
The Slav in Bothwell had failed to understand the Anglo-Saxon blood with which he was dealing.
I faced the man with a dry laugh.
"We'll see. Begin, you coward!"
Pinned down to the table as I was, he struck me in the face for that.
"You lose no time in proving my words true," I jeered.
An odd mixture is man. Faith, one might have thought Bothwell impervious to shame, but at my words the fellow flushed. He could not quite forget that he had once been a gentleman.
In the way of business he could torture me, wipe me from his path without a second thought, but on the surface he must live up to the artificial code his training had imposed upon him.