“DANGEROUS! Why, there’s no trade from here to the Indies more dangerous than ours. I’ve been about a bit, and mind you I know.”

Mat Turnby shifted his large body to a position of greater ease, tilted slightly the rum cask on which he was sitting, and leaned back against the fully rigged mast, balancing himself carefully in accordance with the gentle roll of the ship.

“Oh, I don’t know about that, Mat,” remarked a wiry, black-bearded man, who squatted on a coil of rope some six feet away. “I’ve been on this ship two years now, and how many fights have I had with the Preventative folk? Three! How many hands did we lose in the lot? Eleven! That’s not danger!”

“Ah!” said the other, wisely nodding his head, “maybe, maybe, Blueneck, but it’s some nine months since we last went foul them coastguards and since then we’ve been coming and going as though the damned old Channel belonged to us. Such scatter-brained tricks don’t pay in the end.”

“You be careful what you’re saying, Mat Turnby,” piped a shivering, miserable, little man, who was trying to protect himself from the cutting February wind with a ragged, parti-coloured blanket which he continually wrapped and unwrapped about his skeleton-like shoulders, “you be careful what you’re saying. All kinds o’ things on this ship have ears,” and he nodded once or twice significantly.

The big man moved uneasily on his unstable seat, but he answered boldly enough:

“I saying? Here, you mind what you’re saying, you snivelling rat! Saying? I’m not saying aught as I am ashamed of—I say these daring tricks don’t pay in the end—and—and—they don’t,” he finished abruptly.

“Oh! it’s not for the likes o’ us to talk about what the Captain does,” said the little man whiningly. He snuffled noisily and unwrapped and wrapped his blanket again. “Not for the likes o’ us,” he repeated.

“Who’s saying aught of the Cap’n?” roared Mat, bringing the cask to the deck with a thud. “Who’s saying aught of the Cap’n?”

“Oh! no one, no one at all,” said the shiverer, considerably startled. Then he added, as the big man slid back against the mast once more: “But if no one did—that’s all right, ain’t it? If no one did, I say.”

Mat swore a round of obscene oaths under his breath and there was silence for a minute or two.

They were nearly at the end of the trip. Indeed, another two hours or so would see them safely at anchor in the safest of all smugglers’ havens—the mouth of the River Blackwater, and their cargo easily and openly landed on Mersea Marsh Island.

The shivering little man smiled to himself at the thought of it. The warm kitchen at the Victory Inn, the smoking rum-cup, and the pleasant sallies of the fair Eliza appealed to his present mood, and he sniffled again and rearranged his blanket.

The green, white-splashed water lapped against the boat and a big saddle-backed gull flew over, screaming plaintively.

Mat began to talk again.

“I wonder why we do it,” he said slowly. “There ain’t anything in him—a weak, ugly little Spaniard, no——”

Blueneck interrupted sharply.

“Hush,” he said. “No good ever comes of talking about Black’erchief Dick, whatever is said.”

“Who said I was talking of the Cap’n?” said Mat quickly.

Blueneck looked uncomfortable, but he replied steadily: “Ah! Mat Turnby, you be careful!”

Mat laughed.

“I reckon you’ve got enough to do lookin’ after yerself—wi’out worrying about me, master Spaniard,” he said good-naturedly.

Blueneck shifted his position slightly.

“I reckon we git paid more than most sea-faring folk,” he said.

Mat snorted.

“Oh, yes!” he growled, “paid! We’re paid, all right, but how are we treated?”

Blueneck grinned.

“Like princes of the blood on the island,” he laughed.

“Oh! yes, on the island,” Mat’s voice rose, “but I say—on the brig? How then? Like dogs, men—like dirty, heathen, black-skinned dogs! And what I ask is, why do we do it? Are we men to be afraid of a brown-skinned, drunken little pirate of a Spaniard? Just because he owns a brig or two and smuggles as much rum in a year as any other man in the trade? What has he got about him that we should turn wenches and follow him, like the scum he thinks us? Save that he has a mighty plaguey way of turning fine words and——”

“The knife!”

The little man who had spoken huddled his blanket closer and shuddered again. The wind dropped for a moment and a tremor ran through the full sails, as though they also had shivered.

Mat Turnby laughed, albeit somewhat uneasily.

“The knife?” he said. “Lord, what’s a knife to a man who holds one of these?” He pulled a heavy flintlock pistol out of a pocket in the voluminous skirts of the sleeveless and brightly coloured coat which he wore over a rough homespun guernsey and held it on the palm of his open hand.

Blueneck smiled grimly.

“A precious great deal when the hand that holds the knife is Black’erchief Dick’s,” he said.

Mat Turnby laughed again contemptuously.

“Are you flesh and good red blood, or mud and pond slime, that you fear the foolish word of a Spanish sot? I tell you no knife held in a mortal hand can stand against a bullet from this.”

“Ay, in a mortal hand,” said he of the blanket, fearfully looking behind him.

The big sailor swore.

“Lord,” he said, “I knew not that I had come aboard a ship manned with a crew of beldames. I tell you this great captain of yours would be laid as flat as Mersea mud with one little lead ball from this.”

He stroked the pistol lovingly.

“Maybe,” said Blueneck stubbornly. “But whoever fired that shot would die by—the knife.”

“Ah! that’s tremendous likely,” sneered the other; “him on his back with a good ounce of lead in that wicked head of his.”

Blueneck shrugged his shoulders.

“You can laugh now, Mat Turnby,” he said, “but you won’t always laugh at what I tell you. No, not by a long way, that you won’t.”

He hugged his knees to his chin, and let the heavy lids fall over his eyes.

This apparent indifference seemed to irritate Mat more than words for, bringing his hand down on his knee with a mighty slap, he swore loudly for several seconds. Then suddenly breaking off short he burst into a short, sharp laugh.

“Well!” he said. “It’s time the Spanish swine knew that there’s someone aboard who ain’t afraid of him, no, neither him nor his knife. S’truth! am I to cower down to a Spaniard?”

He stretched his huge limbs and showed his large yellow teeth as he smiled rather sourly.

“No, by the Lord, not I,” he went on. “Let him cross me if he dare, and he’ll see good Suffolk blood is a match for thin Spanish sap any day. Ho! ho! ho! let him cross me if he dare. Ho! ho!”

The laugh died away on his lips as from just behind his ear came another. It was soft, rich, musical, and wholly unpleasant.

At the first sound of it the three men sat rigid, and when it had ceased there was no sound for several seconds save for the water lapping against the side and the scream of the gulls overhead.

Blueneck was the first of the sailors to recover. He lifted his eyes cautiously to the direction from which the laugh had come.

He saw what he feared and expected. Up against the other side of the mast, directly behind Mat Turnby, stood a slight figure dressed extravagantly in the French style of the day, a dandy from the Brussels frill at his throat to the great silver buckles of rich workmanship which adorned his tanned shoes. But it was not these things which stopped the three sailors so suddenly in their talk and caused them to sit aghast.

The most remarkable thing about the newcomer was his face—long, lean, brown, and unhandsome, it yet had a character at once interesting and repulsive. The finely marked eyebrows met across the low, well-tanned brow in an almost straight line, and the hair—oiled and curled—showed as black as the silk kerchief which covered the greater part of head and neck. The eyes beneath the lids, fringed with heavy lashes, smiled and glittered disconcertingly. The whole face was smiling now, viciously, almost fiendishly, but yet smiling and with some enjoyment.

Blueneck’s eyes dropped before that terrible smile and, as they travelled slowly downward, suddenly dilated, and he shivered as though a snake had touched him.

The figure by the mast had moved a little more round and his hand was visible. It was at this that Blueneck stared.

Among the small, white, much-beringed fingers, and round the slender wrist from which the lace ruffle had been pushed back a little, slid the thin blue blade of a Spanish stiletto. Through the thumb and first finger it slipped, over the blue vein of the white forearm, mingled its brightness with the flashing jewels on the third and fourth fingers—and so round again, all without any apparent effort or even movement of the hand. It was an exhibition to be admired and praised, yet Blueneck and the shivering little man at his side shuddered and looked away.

Mat Turnby, on the other hand, had not seen anything. He sat quite still, the pistol lying idly in the palm of his great hand, staring fixedly in front of him.

A hand, white and slender, slid over his left shoulder and away again—the pistol vanished. Still Mat did not move.

“A very pretty toy, and a useful, my friend,” said the same soft voice, just behind Mat’s ear.

The big sailor pulled himself together with an effort, stood up, then turned toward his captain.

Blueneck and the little man in the blanket also rose.

Black’erchief Dick had not changed his position. The big pistol and the slender knife lay side by side on his small white palm, and he still smiled as he spoke again:

“Now my noble son of an ox,” he began pleasantly, his white teeth shining, “if it so happened that this day you had to die——” A hasty flush spread over the giant’s face, but otherwise he made no sign. Black’erchief Dick continued, “If, I say,” he repeated, “that this day you had to die, which of these beautiful toys would you choose as a means to death?”

He held his open hand a little nearer to the sailor.

Blueneck stared at him, fascinated, and the little man with the blanket sniffed audibly.

Black’erchief Dick’s eyes left Mat Turnby for a moment and rested on the shivering little creature. “Sniff thy way aft, Habakkuk Coot,” he said quietly. The little man stared at him, shivered, sniffed again, and seemed unable to move.

Slowly the Spaniard’s arm lifted the pistol in his hand.

Habakkuk sniffed again and his eyes dilated with terror; a white finger raised crooked round the trigger, and pressed. There was an explosion. Habakkuk remained standing for a second, then fled down the hatchway, a jagged hole through his blanket.

Black’erchief Dick smiled and, turning to Mat, continued: “As I said, Matthew Turnby, if this day thou hadst to die, which of these weapons wouldst thou choose? Thou seest I know the manner of either,” he added, and, suddenly darting out his hand, he plunged the knife between the big sailor’s arm and body, so that the sleeve of the man’s guernsey was skewered to the body of his coat. Still Mat Turnby neither moved nor spoke. Laughing slightly, the Spaniard drew out the knife and resumed the one-sided conversation.

“Nay, Matthew Turnby, you do but jest in keeping the thin Spanish sap in my veins so long waiting for an answer,” he said with a sneer and a smile. The sailor swallowed noisily, but said nothing.

“The drunken sot of a pirate must be taught not to cross thee, Matthew,” went on the Captain, and his smile had vanished, leaving only a weary expression on the lean features. “Lord! man, if thou wilt not choose, faith, I must for thee.”

“Surely, Capt’n—you jest—surely.”

The words came like a flood from the big man’s open mouth.

An expression of surprise spread over the Spaniard’s face. “I jest?” he said. “Nay, faith, good Matthew, I jest?” he repeated. “Lord, man, when didst thou get that into thy ass’s pate—nay, nay, of a certainty I do not jest—which wilt thou have?”

Mat Turnby’s face grew purple, but he did not speak; his tongue protruded slightly from his lips.

Black’erchief Dick looked at the weapons critically as they lay side by side in his hand.

“Ah,” he said at last, holding the pistol in his left hand. “This we see, Matthew, is discharged. I beg thy pardon, seÑor, for pressing a choice I could not give thee. As it is, you see, but the knife remains,” and he dropped the pistol into a capacious pocket.

Mat Turnby’s hand clutched at his throat and he stepped back a pace or two.

Black’erchief Dick followed him, the knife swinging lightly between his thumb and forefinger. Blueneck stood watching, his eyes fixed on the Spaniard in unholy fascination. Farther and farther back stepped the big sailor, Dick keeping always the same distance from him, until he reached the side of the boat. There he stayed, breathless with fear. Slowly the Spaniard came nearer and nearer to him, and the thin blue blade ceased to swing.

“So thou wouldst teach that ‘drunken pirate’ that all men are not afraid of him? Eh? Is that so? The voice seemed to grow more caressing at every word and the big sailor’s eyes shut. Suddenly they opened again and looked down.

“Look!” Dick was saying. “Look, Matthew, son of Suffolk clay, see how fair my blade looks against thy fur-grown hide.” He tore at the guernsey and pulled it open, showing the great hairy chest beneath. The terrified sailor made one lunge forward, as though to grasp the lean brown throat, but he was too late. Swift as lightning the small white hand shot back and then forward, and the thin blue blade vanished in the wretched man’s body just over the collar-bone, cutting the jugular vein. The great body stiffened and then, gradually relaxing, dropped at the Spaniard’s feet.

Blueneck stifled a cry and stepped forward.

Slowly the Spaniard pulled out the steel, wiped it carefully on the brightly coloured sleeveless coat, then slipped it into his belt.

“Over with the dog,” he said shortly to Blueneck, as he walked off quietly up the deck.

Blueneck hailed one of the frightened crew who had watched the scene from the deck-house roof, and in silence the two lifted up all that was left of the great sailor and pushed it over the side. The body splashed in the green water and somewhere near a cormorant shrieked to his kind the news of fresh prey, and the ship, her sails bellying out to the wind, sped on toward the island.