We're in no case either to run or fight." Blood's height seemed to increase, as did his sternness.
"Ogle," said he, in a voice cold and sharp as steel, "your station is on the gun-deck.

You'll return to it at once, and take your crew with you, or else...." But Ogle, violent of mien and gesture, interrupted him.
"Threats will not serve, Captain." "Will they not ?" It was the first time in his buccaneering career that an order of his had been disregarded, or that a man had failed in the obedience to which he pledged all those who joined him.

That this insubordination should proceed from one of those whom he most trusted, one of his old Barbados associates, was in itself a bitterness, and made him reluctant to that which instinct told him must be done.

His hand closed over the butt of one of the pistols slung before him.
"Nor will that serve you," Ogle warned him, still more fiercely.

"The men are of my thinking, and they'll have their way." "And what way may that be ?" "The way to make us safe.