“You’ll recover”, the old man went on with a self-confident look. He took a step closer to the dead man’s corpse and cast a dirty look at him. “These Frenchmen are real bastards. You know, I’ve always believed they were just sissies wearing wigs, with lips oiled by goose paté. First they smile to you in their affected way, then they stab you in your back.”
Johnny could hear a natural calm in his voice, as if he didn’t care at all about what was happening on the deck. He actually realized soon after that the noises had decreased. He could still feel the fear of death and the pain inside himself, but that was nothing compared to the turmoil near the stern.
Blackbeard had broken the human wall and had flung to the middle of the last gang of fighting men. His sabre was whizzing over his adve
