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. We'll neither sink nor hang whiles we
can help it."
From the three or four score men massed below in the waist came a
rumble of approval. Captain Blood's glance raked the ranks of
those resolute, fierce-eyed fellows, then it came to rest again on
Ogle.
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