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Rh Goddedaal laid down his head on the table like a man ashamed.

“You're joking,” said Wicks, purple in the face.

“Am I?” said Trent. “Please yourselves. You're under no compulsion. This ship's mine, but there's that Brooks Island don't belong to me, and you can lay there till you die for what I care.”

“It's more than your blooming brig's worth!” cried Wicks.

“It's my price anyway,” returned Trent.

“And do you mean to say you would land us there to starve?” cried Tommy.

Captain Trent laughed the third time. “Starve? I defy you to,” said he. “I'll sell you all the provisions you want at a fair profit.”

“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Mac, “but my case is by itself I'm working me passage; I got no share in that two thousand pounds nor nothing in my pockut; and I'll be glad to know what you have to say to me?”

“I ain't a hard man,” said Trent. “That shall make no difference. I'll take you with the rest, only of course you get no fifteen pound.”

The impudence was so extreme and startling, that all breathed deep, and Goddedaal raised up his face and looked his superior sternly in the eye.

But Mac was more articulate. “And you're what ye call a British sayman, I suppose? the sorrow in your guts!” he cried.

“One more such word, and I clap you in irons!” said Trent, rising gleefully at the face of opposition.

“And where would I be the while you were doin' ut?” asked Mac. “After you and your rigging, too! Ye ould puggy, ye haven't the civility of a bug, and I'll learn ye some.”