harbor. Ye white-livered pack o' wolf-breed huskies! Ye cowardly,
snarlin', treacherous divils. Take yer money. I gives it to ye. Go home
an' feed on the good grub I gives to ye an' drink the liquor ye'd never
have the wits nor the courage to salve but for me! Go home wid ye, out
o' my sight, or maybe I'll forgit the flabby-hearted swabs ye be an'
give ye a taste o' me bat!"

The skipper's fury increased with the utterance of every bellowed word.
His dark face burned crimson, and his black eyes glowed like coals in
the open draught of a stove. His teeth flashed between his snarling
lips like a timber-wolf's fangs. He shook his fist at them, picked up a
birch billet, which was a part of the wrecking-gear, and swung it
threateningly. About eight of the men and boys, including young Cormick
Nolan, Nick Leary and Bill Brennen, stood away from the others, out of
line of the skipper's frantic gestures and bruising words. Some of them
were loyal, some simply more afraid of Black Dennis Nolan than of
anything else in the world. But fear, after all, is an important element
in a certain quality of devotion.

The main party were somewhat shaken. A few of them growled back at the
skipper; but not quite loud enough to claim his attention to them in
particular. Some eyed him apprehensively, while others broke open the
ship's and passengers' boxes. They found minted money only in one of the
captain's dispatch-boxes--two small but weighty bags of gold containing
about two hundred sovereigns in all. This was the money which the dead
captain had been armed with by his owners against harbor-dues, etc. The
funds which the passengers must have possessed had doubtless been flung
overboard and under along with the unfortunate beings who had clung to
them. The sullen, greedy fellows began to count and divide the gold.
They were slow, suspicious, grasping. The skipper, having fallen to a