I saw
you last night staring through the transom. Watch your step, Flint. I'm
telling you."

"But if she should happen to take a fancy to me, who shall say no?"

"Hate yourself, eh? There was liquor on your breath last night. Did you
bring some aboard?"

"What's that to you?"

"It's a whole lot to me, my bucko--to me and to the rest of the boys.
Cleigh will not prosecute us for piracy if we play a decent game until we
raise the Catwick. On old Van Dorn's tub we can drink and sing if we want
to. If Cunningham gets a whiff of your breath, when you've had it, you'll
get yours. Most of the boys have never done anything worse than apple
stealing. It was the adventure. All keyed up for war and no place to go,
and this was a kind of safety valve. Already half of them are beginning to
knock in the knees. Game, understand, but now worried about the future."

"A peg or two before turning in won't hurt anybody. I'm not touching it in
the daytime."

"Keep away from him when you do--that's all. We're depending on you and
Cunningham to pull through. If you two get to scrapping the whole business
will go blooey. If we play the game according to contract there's a big
chance of getting back to the States without having the sheriff on the
dock to meet us. But if you mess it up because an unexpected stroke put a
woman on board, you'll end up as shark bait."

"Maybe I will and maybe I won't," was the truculent rejoinder.

"Lord!" said Cleve, a vast discouragement in his tone. "You lay a course
as true and fine as a hair, and run afoul a rotting derelict in the
night!"

Flint laughed.

"Oh, I shan't make any trouble. I'll say my prayers regular until we make
shore finally. The agreement was to lay off the Cleigh booze. I brought on
board only a couple of quarts, and they'll be gone before we raise the
Catwick. But if I feel like talking to the woman I'll do it."

"It's your funeral, not mine," was the ominous comment. "You've been on
the beach once too often, Flint, to play a game like this straight. But
Cunningham had to have you, because you know the Malay lingo. Remember, he
isn't afraid of anything that walks on two feet or four."

"Neither am I--when I want anything. But glass beads!"

"That was only a lure for Cleigh, who'd go round the world for any curio
he was interested in."

"That's what I mean. If it were diamonds or pearls or rubies, all well and
good. But a string of glass beads! The old duffer is a nut!"