ound under a little clump of shady
trees that were grouped there, which shut off the view of the house and
the headmaster's eye; but never previously had the surroundings of any
similar pugilistic encounter seemed so strange as now!

As usual in such cases, the news had circulated through the ship with
astonishing rapidity, considering that only a couple of minutes or so at
most had elapsed since I had saved the starling and knocked down Weeks;
for the whole crew, with the exception of two or three hands standing by
the braces and the man at the wheel, appeared to scent the battle from
afar, and were now gathered near the scene of action--some on the
forecastle with their legs dangling over, others in the lower rigging,
whence they could command the issues of the fray.

It was a pitiful contrast!

Here was the noble vessel surging through the gradually rising sea, with
her towering masts and spreading canvas, and the wind whistling through
the cordage, and the water coming every now and then over her bows in a
cascade of iridescent spray, as the fast-fading gleams of the sunset lit
it up, or else rushing by the side of the ship like a mill-race as we
plunged through it, welling in at the scuppers as it washed inboard.
All illustrated the grandeur of nature, the perfection of art; while
there, on the deck, under the evening sky and amid all the glories of
the waning glow in the western horizon and the grandeur of the sea in
its might and the ship in its beauty and power over the winds and waves
alike, were we two boys standing up to fight each other, with a parcel
of bearded men who ought to have known better grouped round eagerly
awaiting the beginning of the combat.

A contrast, but yet only an illustration of one of the ordinary phases
of human nature after all, as father would have said, I thought, this
reflection passing through my mind with that instantaneous spontaneity
with which such fancies do occur to one, as Rooney placed me in my
assigned position. Then, recalling my mind to the present, I noticed
that Matthews, my whilom fellow apprentice and lately promoted third
mate, sinking the dignity of his new rank, had come forward to act as
the second, or backer, of my opponent, who must have sent some message
aft to summon him.

"Now, me bhoys, are ye riddy?" sang out the boatswain, who stood on the
weather side of the deck, glancing first at me and then at Weeks. "One,
two, thray--foire away!"

I was not