'Ere she is, an' 'ere she'll stop, an' the best thing you can do is spread the notion among the crew that she's runnin' away to avoid marryin' a man she doesn't like.

That sounds reasonable, an' it 'appens to be true.

Verity an' me talked it over last Sunday, p.m." "To avoid a marriage ?" repeated Hozier, who discovered a bluff honesty, not to say candor, in the statement, not perceptible hitherto in his commander's utterances.
"Yes, that's it," said Coke, waving the cigar across an arc of the horizon as he warmed to the subject.

"But look 'ere, me boy, this gal sails under my flag.

I'm, wot d'ye call it, in locomotive parentibus, or something of the sort, while she's on the ship's books.