something
that would make them quiet for the rest of the night. He added that he
would ask for nothing better than to have the opportunity of beating
Dunburne's head to a pudding, and that he would give a crown to have
the three of them within arm's-reach for a minute.

Upon this Captain Blessington swore that he should be immediately
accommodated, and therewith delivered an order to that effect to the
watermen. These obeyed so promptly that almost before Dunburne was
aware of what had happened the two boats were side by side, with hardly
a foot of space between the gunwales. Dunburne beheld one of the
watermen of his own boat knock down one of the crew of the other with
the blade of an oar, and then he himself was clutched by the collar in
the grasp of the man with the fur cap. Him Dunburne struck twice in the
face, and in the moonlight he saw that he had started the blood to
running down from his assailant's nose. But his blows produced no other
effect than to call forth a volley of the most horrible oaths that ever
greeted his ears. Thereupon the boats drifted so far apart that our
young gentleman was haled over the gunwale and soused in the cold water
of the river. The next moment some one struck him upon the head with a
belaying-pin or a billet of wood, a blow so crushing that the darkness
seemed to split asunder with a prodigious flaming of lights and a
myriad of circling stars, which presently disappeared into the profound
and utter darkness of insensibility. How long this swoon continued our
young gentleman could never tell, but when he regained so much of his
consciousness as to be aware of the things about him, he beheld himself
to be confined in a room, the walls whereof were yellow and greasy with
dirt, he himself having been laid upon a bed so foul and so displeasing
to his taste that he could not but regret the swoon from which he had
emerged into consciousness. Looking down at his person, he beheld that
his clothes had all been taken away from him, and that he was now clad
in a shirt with only one sleeve, and a pair of breeches so tattered
that they barely covered his nakedness. While he lay thus, dismally
depressed by so sad a pickle as that into which he found himself
plunged, he was strongly and painfully aware of an uproarious babble of
loud and drunken voices and a continual clinking of glasses, which
appeared to sound as from a tap-room beneath, these commingled now and
then with oaths and scraps o