ot manage to land me a facer, however, straight out, try all
that he could; and presently, on my feeling particularly `riled' by a
backhanded clout he succeeded in landing on my cheek, I drew out my
left, and, driving it home forwards with all my strength, let him have
it straight on the nose.

"Faith, ye tapped his claret for him that time, mabouchal; it's stramin'
out all over the dick."

Hardly had my chum made this observation, so highly expressive of his
unconcealed delight, ere `Ugly,' wiping away the blood from his face
with the sleeve of his jumper, and clutching hold of the lanyard round
his neck, to the end of which his knife was attached, made a spring at
me from the knee of his second, where he had sat dazed for half a
moment, giving vent to a cry that was more like the howl of a wild
animal than anything else.

I put up my hands mechanically, though I had hardly then imagined he
would have come so soon at me again; intending, however, more to guard
his attack than hit him any blow, for I really thought he had received
quite enough punishment already.

But he beat down my guard as easily as if my arms really had been made
of pipeclay, and then I felt a stinging sensation through one of these
and my left side, just as if I had run foul of a jelly-fish when
swimming off the `Hot Walls,' as I have done sometimes when bathing.

"Begorrah, the thafe's stabbed ye!" exclaimed Mick, putting his arms
round me as I fell back. "Whare now is ye hoort, Tom, alannah?"

"Oh, it's nothing," I said with a laugh, as soon as I got back my
breath, which had been knocked out of me by the rush `Ugly' made, the
knife having only grazed my ribs, while it had given an ugly gash to my
arm; though, probably, had I not guarded the blow, the sharp weapon with
which my antagonist had only been supplied, like the rest of us, that
very morning, would as likely as not have `settled my hash,' as father
used to say. "Pray don't make a fuss of it, Mick, or any of you
fellows. It will all rub off when it's dry!"

Larrikins and the other first-class boy had meanwhile collared `Ugly'
and taken the knife from him, to prevent his doing any further mischief
with it; and, as fighting was prohibited on board, and they might
possibly have been brought up on the quarter-deck as accomplices, should
the affair get wind and come to the notice of the ship's police, the
two, who no doubt were old and tried hands at the game, thought it best
to tak