The waves were hitting the boat violently, the wood creaking to the rhythm of the sailors who were fighting the storm. But the two men in front of us did not care about these details, all their concentration was on the table in front of them and on a wooden base, quite poorly treated by time.

The younger looking sailor bravely stepped towards the cup, placing his hand on it, slowly revealing the result of the dice as if his fate depended on it.

"Hahaha ... It seems that the Goddess is on my side and fortune smiles on me !!!" The old man said with a triumphant smile on his face as he proceeded to collect the dice as if they were a war trophy.

"You could be more unhappy, Ron! These dice must be loaded, there's no way you can win 4 times in a row!"

Ron, hearing the young boy's excuses that he didn't want to pay him, got a little impatient and quickly took out a rusty knife that he always kept at his waist and stabbed it violently on the table.

"Come on, Ricardo, don't complain and throw the caps at once, do you think that someone as honest as I would cheat to deceive a colleague?"

Hearing that Ron would not admit to cheating, Ricardo grew furious and grabbed the bottle of wine that he had next to him ready to smash the face of this greedy bastard in front of him.

"But of course you would!"

"It is not enough to spend 5 months cleaning this damn ship, now a bastard comes and steals my first salary using tricks?"

Ron, seeing how the conversation heated up, stood up suddenly and before the rookie could reason, he grabbed the boy's shirt with a slap and with firm hands threw it, throwing Ricardo against the wall.

Ricardo, seeing himself pressed against the wall by Ron's hand, tried to hit Ricardo with a bottle on the back of the neck to free himself, but before he could land a blow, a knife in terrible condition was in front of his eye…

"You better not move rookie"

"Listen to two marine advice" … said Ron contemptuously "first if you are willing to bet but not lose, you better not bet"

“Second” …. Ron said as he slowly brought the knife closer to Ricardo's eye, "in the sea your life is worth less than a barrel of water, so don't be too clever unless you want to be used as bait to catch fish, understand?"

"Yes... Yes... please let go of me... it's just my first trip. I was a bit nervous, I'll pay you for all the caps once we get to the port, I promise but don't do anything to me" Ricardo said with a voice trembling.

But old Ron seemed to care little for the young boy's pleas.

"Haha....but do you think it's so easy to try not to pay a debt to a sailor boy? ... Now decide the left or the right?" Ron said as an abnormally large smile spread across his face and his eyes darkened to pitch black.

But before Ricardo could answer, a heavy voice came from behind:

"Hey! What the hell is going on here!!!"

Hearing the scream behind him, Ron's eyes returned to normal and somewhat dazed, he released Ricardo without understanding much of what had happened a few seconds ago.

Then he turned around, trying to hide his knife, to respond to the voice that shouted and with some cunning said:

"Captain, this rookie does not want to pay his debts! I propose to throw him overboard and distribute his salary with the rest of the comrades on board !!!"