e swinging lamp. He
did not turn his back to Claggett Chew nor take his eyes from him.

[Illustration]

"Kindly leave the room, Claggett," he went on, in too quiet a voice to
be otherwise than poisonous, "until you are more yourself. Your
conduct and tone are unbecoming to a gentleman," Osterbridge said,
with his head held high in disdainful dignity.

They were an extraordinary sight. The shaven-headed, clay-faced pirate
looming so high and so huge in the doorway that he filled it
altogether, his clothes torn, filthy and stained from the battle and
from careless weeks at sea. His companion was a travesty of his
onetime elegance, dirty lace ruffles spotted by forgotten meals, his
velvet coat marked by chairbacks and soiled from months of constant
wear, his hair unwashed and sleazily caught back, no longer curled
with a fine exactitude. Both men had been housed together for too
long. Long ago they had exhausted all topics of conversation, their
two difficult personalities had for months been festering, each at the
sight of the other.

Now Claggett Chew ground out between his clenched teeth: "You are a
fool, Osterbridge. Have always been one and will so remain. Do you
defy me and do not give up that bird, as hell is my witness I shall
snatch it from you with this whip, and nothing shall stop me!"

Osterbridge reached behind him with his right hand, holding the
parakeet in an increasingly uncomfortable and tightening grip in his
left. On the wall behind him hung his rapier in its scabbard,
delicately incised and showing the fine workmanship of its French
origin. With a quick, deft movement, Osterbridge's fingers had found
the hilt and drawn the rapier out, his face snarling, his eyes
expressionless. They were fixed on Claggett Chew who had not moved
from where he leaned against the side of the doorway.

Osterbridge Hawsey's voice was almost more frightening when he spoke
again than Claggett Chew's, as he slowly brought the rapier to his
side with quiet calculated gestures.

"I have had enough of your ordering, Claggett. You may order your
scurvy men about as you wish--half-wits, rascals, thieves and
murderers who know no better than to do your bidding, knowing they may
well die by your hands as by some other. But you have met your match.
I, Osterbridge Hawsey, shall not give in to a madman and a murdering
pillager. How I ever came to join you or your pirates God alone knows,
but you shall not govern me! Nor shall y