His voice was indeed scarce raised above a whisper, but emotion clanged in it.

'What do you know about me?
If you had commanded the finest barque that ever sailed from Portland; if you had been drunk in your berth when she struck the breakers in Fourteen Island Group, and hadn't had the wit to stay there and drown, but came on deck, and given drunken orders, and lost six lives--I could understand your talking then! There,' he said more quietly, 'that's my yarn, and now you know it.

It's a pretty one for the father of a family.

Five men and a woman murdered.

Yes, there was a woman on board, and hadn't no business to be either.