Kennit cleared his throat. The single noise conveyed more of contempt and disdain than most men could have fitted into an entire stream of abuse. Gankis looked aside and down from it. “It was him that said it, sir, not me.” He tugged at the waist of his worn trousers. Almost reluctantly he added, “The man is a bit in the dream world. Gives a seventh of all that comes his way to Sa's temple, and both his eldest children besides. Such a man don't think as we do, sir.”

“When you think at all, Gankis,” the captain concluded for him. He lifted his pale eyes to look far up the tide line, squinting slightly as the morning sun dazzled off the moving waves. “Take yourself up to your sedgy cliffs, Gankis, and walk along them. Bring me whatever you find there.”

“Yessir.” The older pirate trudged away. He gave one rueful backward glance at his young captain. Then he clambered agilely up the short bank to the deeply grassed tableland that fronted on the beach. He began to walk a parallel course, his eyes scanning the bank ahead of him. Almost immediately, he spotted something. He sprinted toward it, then lifted an object that flashed in the morning sunlight. He raised it up to the light and gazed at it, his seamed face lit with awe. “Sir, sir, you should see what I've found!”

“I might be able to, did you bring it here to me as you were commanded,” Kennit observed irritably.

Like a dog called to heel, Gankis made his way back to the captain. His brown eyes shone with a youthful sparkle, and he clutched the treasure in both hands as he leaped nimbly down the man-height drop to the beach. His low shoes kicked up sand as he ran. A brief frown creased Kennit's brow as he watched Gankis advancing towards him. Although the old sailor was prone to fawn on him, he was no more inclined to share booty than any other man of his trade. Kennit had not truly expected Gankis willingly to bring to him anything he found on the grassy bank; in fact he had been rather anticipating divesting the man of his trove at the end of their stroll. To have Gankis hastening toward him, his face beaming as if he were a country yokel bringing his beloved milkmaid a posy, was positively unsettling.