"The common dark gray," he said.
"That's all right, then," sneered Coke. "Watts don't mind 'em gray.
They're old messmates of his. It's w'en they're pink or green that he
fights shy of 'em."
"I hate rats of any sort----" began Watts hotly, spurred to anger by an
audible snigger among the men, but De Sylva stopped his protest
peremptorily. It was idiotic, this bantering when the next half hour
might be their last.
"You must learn to guard your tongue," he said with harsh distinctness.
"We cannot have our plans marred by a fool's outcry."
Nevertheless, the chief officer of the _Andromeda_ was far from being a
fool. He had cut an inglorious figure during the wreck, but he was
sober enough now, and it hurt his pride to be jeered at by his own
skipper and treated with contumely by one whom he privately classed as
a Dago. He had the good sense to realize that the present was no fit
time for a display of temper; but he nursed his wrath. Dom Corria
would have been well advised had he followed the counsel given so
ungraciously, and guarded his own tongue.
It might well be that the ex-President, whose fortunes were on the
tiptoe of desperate hazard, was beginning to despair. He may have
scanned the meager forces at his disposal and felt that he was asking
the gods for more than they could grant.
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