Here's our offer: keep command of your ship and run up the black flag!" Phips's arm shot out and dropped the man to the ground.
"That's it, you filthy rogues!" he roared.

"Me to turn pirate, eh?
You'd set to weaving ropes for the necks of every one of us--blood of my soul!" He seemed not to know that cutlasses were threatening him, not to be aware that the man at his feet, clutching his weapon, was mad with rage.
"Now look," he said, in a big loud voice, "I know that treasure is here, and I know we'll find it; if not now, when we get Bucklaw on his feet." "Ay! Bucklaw! Bucklaw!" ran through the throng.
"Well, then, Bucklaw, as you say! Now here's what I'll do, scoundrels though you be.

Let me hear no more of this foolery.

Stick to me till the treasure's found--for God take my soul if I leave this bay till I have found it!--and you shall have good share of booty." He had grasped the situation with such courage that the mutineers hesitated.

He saw his advantage and followed it up, asking for three of their number to confer with him as to a bond upon his proposal.