"No, sir, it ain't all, nor 'arf, nor quarter.

Let me tell you that no crimson pirate on Gawd's earth can blow a British ship off the 'igh seas an' then do the dancin'-master act, with 'is 'and on 'is 'eart, an' say it was just a flamin' mistake.

All! says you?
Don't you believe it.

There's a lot more to come yet, take my tip--a devil of a lot, or I'm the biggest lunatic within a ten-mile circle of w'ere I'm stannin', which is givin' long odds to any other crank in the whole creation." And Coke was right, though he little guessed then why he was so thoroughly justified in assuming that he and the other survivors of the _Andromeda_ had not yet gone through half, or quarter, or more than a mere curtain-raising prelude to the strange human drama in which they were destined to be the chief actors..