A killing at sea and what it shows about justice, swift and corrupt

Continuing on yesterday's post re the crucial scene in Richard Hughes's A High Wind in Jamaica, following the killing of the Dutch (yesterday I mistakenly said Danish) captain we see a different side of the pirate crew: so far, the surprise has been that they are generally kind and thoughtful about the six children held captive aboard - but never forget that they are robbers, that they have made no attempt to bring the children to safety, that they know they'll be in serious trouble if they're taken by authorities, British or other (they've bribed the Spanish apparently), and are found with these children (who are presumed dead), that they'll be in worse trouble because of the death of one of the children (John), that when they're drunk they're dangerous as when Capt Jonsen fondled the 10-year-old Emily, that they treat the children like pets who are eminently disposable and subject to torture (the monkey, the lion and tiger, the pig doomed to slaughter). And we see another flash of their malice: they have a code of their own and when they discover the murdered Dutch captain and suspect, wrongly, that the dour Margaret killed him without hesitation the crew throws the young woman overboard. It's by luck and chance that she swims reasonably well and gets picked up by a rowboat (bringing crew back from the captive Dutch ship) and brought right back aboard. But we see how for the pirates justice such as it is is swift and immediate - different from the English justice system, deliberate and corrupt, that we will see in later chapters. The entire personality of the ship changes after the killing of the Dutch captain, with Margaret withdrawn and Emily, who stabbed the man to death, more or less going insane, singling tunelessly, talking to herself. The crew is now serious about sailing and realizes that the children are a huge problem and not sure what to do about them - if they bring them to safety, will they talk? Or will they hold to the fiction that the men rescued the children from another piratical band? And of course, we have to think, safest of all for the pirates would be to throw all of the children overboard - but how immoral can they really be?