and parried, with a nimbleness and correctness that
excited the praise of our instructor; but when we got to what was called
`general practice,' and learnt cuts `One' and `Two,' with an extra
`Point,' before our teacher sang out `Guard!' our enthusiasm knew no
bounds, and all of us would fancy ourselves to be bluejackets in action,
boarding a pirate or leading a storming-party and killing hecatombs of
enemies on the war-path, our weapons mowing them down with every sweep!

Sometimes our sword-play got us into scrapes, when two boys matched
against each other by the instructor allowed their zeal to overcome
their discretion; for, occasionally, they would lose their tempers when
over the single-sticks and give one another such spiteful blows that the
instructor would have to interfere and separate them by force of arms.

In the majority of cases, however, the scratches we received were more
the result of accident than of malice intent; and the little
embroilments that happened when sword-play degenerated into horseplay
were not, as a rule, worth mentioning.

On one occasion, though, my chum Mick nearly had his nose carved off in
an encounter with a comrade, though luckily his opponent did not succeed
in spoiling Mick's beauty.

This would have been a pity; for, really, he was a very good-looking
chap, and I am sure my sister Jenny, though she wouldn't confess it,
would have been sorry if anything had occurred to mar his comely face.

It happened thus. When skylarking together on the upper deck one
evening, Mick and another fellow caught up a couple of cutlasses that
had been left inadvertently lying about the deck, and they commenced
pointing and cutting and slashing at one another with the keen-edged
weapons, just as if they had been mere basket-hilted single-sticks, a
rap from which would have done no damage beyond a bruise.

They were going it in fine style, when all at once Mick's foot slipped;
and, missing his guard as his opponent made a vicious cut `one' at him,
he received this on his chest, the cutlass cutting through his jumper
and flannel and making a slight wound across his breastbone.

Had his head not been thrown backwards as he slipped, poor Mick would
have had the most striking feature of his merry countenance sliced off
as dexterously as if it had been a carrot!

The last seven weeks of my experiences of the old ship, which I had
begun to look upon as much my home as the little cottage at Bonfire