When Dodd saw she wanted, not an explanation, but a grievance, he ceased
to thwart her. "I am neglecting my duties to no purpose," said he, and
left her without ceremony. This was a fresh offence; and, as he went out,
she declared open war. And she made it too from that hour: a war of pins
and needles.
Dodd went on the gun-deck and found that the defence of the ship had, as
usual in these peaceful days, been sacrificed to the cargo. Out of twenty
eighteen-pounders she carried on that deck, he cleared three, and that
with difficulty. To clear any more he must have sacrificed either
merchandise or water: and he was not the man to do either on the mere
chance of a danger so unusual as an encounter with a pirate. He was a
merchant captain, not a warrior.
Meantime the _Agra_ had already shown him great sailing qualities: the
log was hove at sundown and gave eleven knots; so that with a good breeze
abaft, few fore-and-aft rigged pirates could overhaul her. And this wind
carried her swiftly past one nest of them, at all events: the Ladrone
isles. At nine P.M., all the lights were ordered out.
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