What should I do
On they came until the Colonel was abreast of Blood. He would have passed on, but that the lady tapped his arm with her whip.
“But this is the man I meant,” she said.
“This one?” Contempt rang in the voice. Peter Blood found himself staring into a pair of beady brown eyes sunk into a yellow, fleshly face like currants into a dumpling. He felt the colour creeping into his face under the insult of that contemptuous inspection. “Bah! A bag of bones. What should I do with him?”
He was turning away when Gardner interposed.
“He maybe lean, but he’s tough; tough and healthy. When half of them was sick and the other half sickening, this rogue kept his legs and doctored his fellows. But for him there’d ha’ been more deaths than there was. Say fifteen pounds for him, Colonel. That’s cheap enough. He’s tough, I tell your honour - tough and strong, though he be lean. And he’s just the man to bear the heat when it comes. The climate’ll never kill him.”