"You're the sort as plays the square game with a man as trusts you, cap'en. Very well. _I've_ trusted you. I come an' put myself in your way, an' told you free what I done, an' I ask, as man to man, for my fair whack o' the stuff. Bein' the straight man you are, you'll do the fair thing." Captain Nat brought his foot down from the chair, and the knee from under his hand; and he clenched the hand on the table. But neither movement disturbed his steady gaze. So he stood for three seconds. Then, with an instant dart, he had Dan Ogle by the hanging arm, just above the wrist. Dan sprang and struggled, but his wrist might have been chained to a post. Twice he made offer to strike at Captain Nat's face with the free hand, but twice the blow fainted ere it had well begun. Tall and powerful as he was, he knew himself no match for the old skipper. Pallid and staring, he whispered hoarsely: "No, cap'en--no! Drop it! Don't put me away! Don't crab the deal! D' y' 'ear----" Captain Nat, grim and silent, slowly drew the imprisoned fore-arm forward, and plucked a bare knife from within the sleeve. There was blood on it, for his grip had squeezed arm and blade together. "Umph!" growled Captain Nat; "I saw that in time, my lad"; and he stuck the knife in the shelf behind him. "S'elp me, cap'en, I wasn't meanin' anythink--s'elp me I wasn't," the ruffian pleaded, cowering but vehement, with his neckerchief to his cut arm. "That's on'y where I carry it, s'elp me--on'y where I keep it!" "Ah, I've seen it done before; but it's an awkward place if you get a squeeze," the skipper remarked drily. "Now you listen to me. You say you've come an' put yourself in my power, an' trusted me. So you have--with a knife up your sleeve. But never mind that--I doubt if you'd ha' had pluck to use it. You killed a man at my door, because of eight hundred pounds you'd got between you; but to get that money you had to kill another man first." "No, cap'en, no----" "Don't try to deny it, man! Why it's what's saving you! I know where that money come from--an' it's murder that got it. Marr was the man's name, an' he was a murderer himself; him an' another between 'em ha' murdered my boy; murdered him on the high seas as much as if it was pistol or poison. He was doin' his duty, an' it's murder, I tell you--murder, by the law of England! That man ought to ha' been hung, but he wasn't, an' he never would ha' been. He'd ha' gone free, except for you, an' made money of it. But you killed that man, Dan Ogle, an' you shall go free for it yourself; for that an' because I won't sell what you trusted me with about this other."