He had used it as a curb not only upon himself, but also upon those who followed him.

Never had buccaneers been so rigidly held in hand, never had they been so firmly restrained, never so debarred from the excesses of rapine and lust that were usual in their kind as those who sailed with Captain Blood.

It was, you will remember, stipulated in their articles that in these as in other matters they must submit to the commands of their leader.

And because of the singular good fortune which had attended his leadership, he had been able to impose that stern condition of a discipline unknown before among buccaneers.
How would not these men laugh at him now if he were to tell them that this he had done out of respect for a slip of a girl of whom he had fallen romantically enamoured?
How would not that laughter swell if he added that this girl had that day informed him that she did not number thieves and pirates among her acquaintance.
Thief and pirate! How the words clung, how they stung and burnt his brain! It did not occur to him, being no psychologist, nor learned in the tortuous workings of the feminine mind, that the fact that she should bestow upon him those epithets in the very moment and circumstance of their meeting was in itself curious.

He did not perceive the problem thus presented; therefore he could not probe it.