Soon the shrewd Wolverstone discovered that rum was not what ailed Blood.

Rum was in itself an effect, and not by any means the cause of the Captain's listless apathy.

There was a canker eating at his heart, and the Old Wolf knew enough to make a shrewd guess of its nature.

He cursed all things that daggled petticoats, and, knowing his world, waited for the sickness to pass.
But it did not pass.

When Blood was not dicing or drinking in the taverns of Tortuga, keeping company that in his saner days he had loathed, he was shut up in his cabin aboard the Arabella, alone and uncommunicative.