Page:Paine--Lost ships and lonely seas.djvu/283

Rh of war. But he found reason to suspect the good faith of his associates, whereupon he summoned them into his cabin and told them to their faces:

Captain Davis was getting ready for a cruise on his own account, with the design of attacking the garrison of one of the Portuguese settlements on the African coast, but he found time to interest himself in the affairs of poor Captain Snelgrave of the Bird galley. It may have been a spark of genuine manliness and sportsmanship, or dislike of the slippery Cocklyn, but at any rate Captain Davis interceded in his own high-handed manner and told the rascals to give the plundered Bird back to her master and to treat him decently.

This altered the situation. Captain Davis was the king wolf of the pack, and his bite was much worse than his bark. Cocklyn and La Boise were disposed to resent this interference and hung back a little, at which the black flag was run up to the masthead of Captain Davis's formidable ship, and the gun-ports were dropped with a clatter to show a