e 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."

His voice did not even rise as he uttered the threat; no man present,
Trent least of all, expected that which followed. The Irishman's hand
rose suddenly from below the table, an open clasp-knife balanced on the
palm; there was a movement swift as conjuring; Trent started half to
his feet, turning a little as he rose so as to escape the table, and the
movement was his bane. The missile struck him in the jugular; he fell
forward, and his blood flowed among the dishes on the cloth.

The suddenness of the attack and the catastrophe, the instant change
from peace to war and from life to death, held all men spellbound. Yet a
moment they sat about the table staring open-mouthed upon the prostrate
captain and the flowing blood. The next, Goddedaal had leaped to his
feet, caught up the stool on which he had been sitting, and swung it
high in air, a man transfigured, roaring (as he stood) so that men's
ears were stunned with it. There was no thought of battle in the
Currency Lasses; none drew his weapon; all huddled helplessly from
before the face of the baresark Scandinavian. His first blow sent Mac to
ground with a broken arm. His second bashed out the brains of Hemstead.
He turned from one to another,