Flint and Silver. John Drake

mess that they had made. Some of them were stirring now, and calling for more drink. Selena served them, and prodded the other girls awake to help her.

      Later in the evening, after lamp-lighting time, when Flint and Neal came back to the liquor shop, a second round of debauchery was well under way. Flint and Neal were like brothers; satisfied with their business and now looking to take a drop or two in celebration. Flint merrily kicked three or four men out of their chairs and swept their pots and plates off the table to make way for himself and Neal. Roars of approval greeted their arrival, and the musicians woke themselves up and joined in the din.

      This time Flint leapt on a table top, threw back his head and led the singing. His men cheered madly when they heard the song, for it was a piece of his own creation, that he sang only when in the best of spirits. Joseph Flint sang beautifully, with a high, carrying voice that was lovely to hear, and once heard never forgotten. He gave each line of the song, with his men roaring out the chorus.

      “Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest –” “Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!” “Drink and the devil had done for the rest –” “Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!” “But one man of her crew alive –” “Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!” “What put to sea with seventy-five –” “Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!”

      The song went on, verse after verse, getting steadily grimmer and darker, but with Flint so beaming and charming, acting out the horrors of the story in such splendid good humour that everyone laughed at the wickedness he was proclaiming.

      When he finished, he sat down to mighty cheers, and smiled like the sun in his glory. Neal smiled too, though he’d no taste for Flint’s kind of music. His mind was still full of delightful calculations concerning the cargoes in the holds of Flint’s two prizes. Selena came to their table at once, with rum. Flint raised his glass to her in a polite toast. His sharp eyes swept her up and down. He frowned. He saw the miserable expression on her face and her red eyes.

      “What rogue has upset you, my African Venus?” he said. He stood up, and took her chin gently in his fingers, the better to study her. “I dare swear you’ve been crying. Just tell me who it was,” he said, in a soft, quiet voice. “Just tell me his name and I’ll have the liver out of him. I’ll rip it out, and slice it narrow, and feed it to him in strips.” Charley Neal blinked anxiously. When other men said things like that, they weren’t really thinking of opening a man’s belly and sticking a hand inside to pull things out. But when Flint made the threat …