nerally
allowed himself for his "forty winks" had expired, his temper was not
sweetened thereby beforehand, only just needing the unseemly _fracas_
which he noticed on coming on the poop to send it up to fever-heat.

I had never seen Captain Billings so angry since I had been on board the
_Esmeralda_; his blue eyes fairly flashed forth fire!

He took no notice of me at first, advancing towards the chief mate.

"Mr Macdougall," said he, sharply, "I call upon you for an explanation
of this--this--discreditable affair!"

"Yon dratted loon, Capting, sought me life!" replied the other, glibly.
"He hove a snatch-block at me, and takkin' the pairt of my ain defeence
I was gangin' to poonish him a wee when ye came on deck."

"And did you give him no occasion for behaving so insubordinately, sir?"
asked the skipper, looking Mr Macdougall straight in the face with a
piercing glance, as if defying him to answer him untruthfully.

But the mate was too old a hand at "spinning a yarn," as sailors term
dealing in fictitious statements. He could utter a falsehood without
winking once!

"Nae, sir," said he, as cool as a cucumber, making no reference to the
fact of his having twice knocked me down before I retaliated on him, "I
did naething to the loon, naething at a'! I only joost reprovit him a
wee for his bad language and inseelance, ye ken, an' he oops wi' yon
block an' heaves at me puir head. It's joost a marcy o' Proveedence he
did nae knockit me brains oot!"

Fortunately for the Scotsman, his good or bad angel was in the ascendant
at this moment, substantiating this incomplete account he gave as to
what had happened. As luck would have it, too, Captain Billings had
only got up the poop ladder in time to take heed of the latter part of
the fray, and thus the evidence of his own eyesight corroborated
apparently the mate's assertion, that I had made a most unjustifiable
assault on him.

Greatly incensed, therefore, he now turned on me.

"I saw the assault myself, Mr Macdougall; so I don't merely take your
word alone for it. What have you got to say, Leigh, in excuse for your
outrageous behaviour? It's--it's scandalous; I could thrash you
myself!"

My pride, however, was roused by the fact of his having accepted the
mate's explanation without asking me for any explanation first, and so
condemning me unheard; consequently, without taking into consideration
the thought that it was only proper that Captain Billings sho