'I'll tell you one thing right now,' says I, 'and that is I'll be blowed if you catch me ashore in the night-time stealing niggers in a place like this.'" "You didn't say blowed," Sparrowhawk corrected.

"You said you'd be damned." "That's what I did, and I meant it, too." "'Nobody asked you to go ashore,' says she, quick as lightning," Sparrowhawk grinned.

"And she said more.

She said, 'And if I catch you going ashore without orders there'll be trouble--understand, Captain Munster ?'" "Who in hell's telling this, you or me ?" the skipper demanded wrathfully.
"Well, she did, didn't she ?" insisted the mate.
"Yes, she did, if you want to make so sure of it.

And while you're about it, you might as well repeat what she said to you when you said you wouldn't recruit on the Poonga-Poonga coast for twice your screw." Sparrowhawk's sun-reddened face flamed redder, though he tried to pass the situation off by divers laughings and chucklings and face-twistings.
"Go on, go on," Sheldon urged; and Munster resumed the narrative.
"'What we need,' says she, 'is the strong hand.