And he sprang up, drawing his knife as if he had been twenty.

"Avast, there!" cried Silver. "Who are you, Tom Morgan? Maybe you
thought you was cap'n here, perhaps. By the powers, but I'll teach you
better! Cross me, and you'll go where many a good man's gone before you,
first and last, these thirty year back--some to the yard-arm, shiver
my timbers, and some by the board, and all to feed the fishes. There's
never a man looked me between the eyes and seen a good day a'terwards,
Tom Morgan, you may lay to that."

Morgan paused, but a hoarse murmur rose from the others.

"Tom's right," said one.

"I stood hazing long enough from one," added another. "I'll be hanged if
I'll be hazed by you, John Silver."

"Did any of you gentlemen want to have it out with ME?" roared Silver,
bending far forward from his position on the keg, with his pipe still
glowing in his right hand. "Put a name on what you're at; you ain't
dumb, I reckon. Him that wants shall get it. Have I lived this many
years, and a son of a rum puncheon cock his hat athwart my hawse at the
latter end of it? You know the way; you're all gentlemen o' fortune, by
your account. Well, I'm ready. Take a cutlass, him that dares, and I'll
see the colour of his inside, crutch and all, before that pipe's empty."

Not a man stirred; not a man answered.

"That's your sort, is it?" he added, returning his pipe to his mouth.