't worry of ye! Don't bother, Thirkle. Yer sharp, but yer good as
dead now. It's me that'll be the fine gent and wear walkin'-about
clothes, and have my drink and comfort, and nobody to split on me. I'll
play yer own game, and leave ye here to rot. How like ye that, Thirkle?"

"Ye are on the wrong tack, Bucky," he said quietly, without lifting his
head. "Dead on the wrong tack and shoal water ahead."

"Nasty weather ahead for you, Thirkle--never fret about Bucky."

"Dead on the wrong tack," repeated Thirkle, as if talking to himself. "I
looked to you for better than this, and trusted you too. I wanted to play
fair with ye, Bucky, because ye've got brains, which a man wouldn't think
to hear ye now."

"Brains enough not to be cut down like a bullock by Thirkle, when the
last comes to the last."

"Reddy and Jim were not fit men to trust with a heap of gold like this,
Bucky, and it's you that knows the truth of what I say. They would have
the whole thing cut open in a week once they got into some port with
their pockets full of sovereigns and their skins full of rum, and their
mouths full of babble in the public houses of their wealth and how smart
they be.

"First we'd know Petrak would be telling how we took the _Southern Cross_
and the _Legaspi_ and the _Kut Sang_, best of all, and last. Now wouldn't
that be the way with him once he got at the gin? Hey, Bucky?"

"He could be watched and his lip kept shut," said Buckrow.

"Would you want to trust yer neck to Petrak's close lip? Tell me that,
Bucky. Could ye sleep with Petrak and his bragging, and Long Jim and his
bragging, and the two of 'em whispering together, considering the friends
they make when drunk. Why, Bucky, man! Long Jim would tell the whole tale
to a barmaid for a smile, as he come near telling that girl in Malta,
with the whole Mediterranean fleet ashore in Valetta.

"If it wasn't for me we'd been in a jam, what with the stories that were
going the rounds about us then, and a P.O. out of the _Implacable_ trying
to chum with me. I wanted to play fair with ye, Bucky, because yer too
smart to let the drink get the better of ye--but what's the use. I don't
want to argue with ye. Go on and play it alone if ye think ye can."

"Well, right ye are," said Buckrow scornfully. "That's the true words ye
speak now, Thirkle. Ye don't want to argue with me. Right-o--a man can't
argue with cold steel--and what's more, ye won't, if I'm Bad Buckrow. I
know ye've got