"Avast, friend!" said Resolution, blinking his solitary eye at Tressady. "The captain o' the Coast Brotherhood is Joanna here--Captain Jo, by the Brotherhood so ordained; 'tis Captain Jo commands here--"
"Say ye so, Resolution, say ye so, lad?" quoth Tressady, tapping at chin with glittering hook. "Now mark me--and keep both hands afore ye--so, my bully--hark'ee now--there's none commands where I am save Roger Tressady!" said he, looking round upon us and with a flourish of his hook. "Now if so be any man thinks different, let that man speak out!"
"And what o' Captain Jo?" demanded Resolution.
"That!" cried Tressady, snapping finger and thumb. "Captain Jo is not, henceforth--sit still, lad--so! Now lift his barkers, Abny--in his pockets. Still and patient, lad, still and patient!" So Resolution perforce suffered himself to be disarmed, while Joanna, pale and languid in the firelight, watched all with eyes that gleamed beneath drooping lashes.
"So now," quoth Tressady, "since I command here, none denying--"
"And what o' Captain Jo?" demanded Resolution.
"Why, I'll tell ye, bully, look'ee now! A man's a man and a woman's a woman, but from report here's one as playeth t'other and which, turn about. But 'tis as woman I judge her best, and as woman she sails along o' me, lad, along o' me!" So saying, he nodded and taking out a case-bottle, wrenched at the cork with his teeth.
"And how say you, Joanna?" questioned Abnegation.
"Tush!" said she, with a trill of laughter. "Here is one that talketh very loud and fool-like and flourisheth iron claw to no purpose, since I heed one no more than t'other--"
"Here's death!" cried he fiercely, stabbing the air with his hook. "Death, wench!"
"Tush!" said she again, "I fear death no more than I fear you, and as for your claw--go scratch where you will!"
Goaded to sudden fury, he raised his hook and would have smitten the slender foot of her that chanced within his reach, but I caught his arm and wrenched him round to face me.
"Hold off, Tressady!" said I. "Here's a man to fight an you're so minded. But as for Joanna, she's sick of her wounds and Resolution's little better; but give me a knife and I'm your man!" And I sprang to my feet. Here for a moment Joanna's eyes met mine full of that melting tenderness I had seen and wondered at before; then she laughed and turned to Tressady: "Sick or no, I am Joanna and better than any man o' you all, yes. Here shall be no need for fight, for look now, Tressady, though you are fool, you are one I have yearned to meet--so here's to our better acquaintance." And speaking, she leaned forward, twitched the bottle from his hand, nodded and clapped it to her mouth all in a moment.