"What has been going on?" asked Randall, perceiving, from the position of the sailors and their looks, that something had happened. What it was, he surmised, having heard something of the noise of the conflict.

[157]

No one of the sailors spoke, but all looked at each other in hesitating silence.

"What was it? Are you all deaf?" demanded the mate, impatiently.

"A little fight, that is all, Mr. Randall," answered Bill Sturdy, coolly hitching up his pants.

"And you were one of the parties?"

"I believe I was."

"And who was the other?"

"Antonio."

"And where is he now?"

"He has gone below," said Bill, in a significant tone.

"What was the fight about?" inquired Randall, who, in ordinary cases, would not have cared to pursue the subject farther, but had an undefined idea that it was in some way connected with our hero, for whom he felt no peculiar affection.

"The fact is," said Bill Sturdy, "Antonio undertook to abuse that lad there," pointing to Charlie; "and I ain't one to stand by and see a boy abused. Besides," he added, with a latent humor which all understood, though[158] he did not allow it to alter the gravity of his countenance, "I knew he was your nephew, and that made me the more anxious to defend him."

Randall was placed in an awkward predicament. He could not deny that Charlie was his nephew after his express declaration to that effect, while at the same time the relationship which he claimed was far from exciting, in his own mind, any attachment for the boy. Still it closed his mouth for the time. He only muttered, in an undertone, that the boy must fight his own battles, and disappeared from the deck.

"Fight his own battles!" repeated Sturdy, indignantly. "A pretty sort of an uncle he is, to match a boy of fourteen against a grown man, and a strong one at that. However," added Sturdy, complacently, "the lad's got a friend that is a match for Antonio at any time."

"That he has," answered a comrade; "but I say, Bill; I couldn't help laughing to see how you made that old shark shut up his mouth by telling him it was his nephew you[159] were fighting for. It made him mad, but he didn't know what to say against it."

"His nephew! No, Jack, it's well the lad isn't any kith or kin of his. A drop of his blood would be enough to spile a decent lad."

"Ay, that it would."

Presently Antonio came on deck with a sullen air, half of defiance, half of humiliation, at his recent defeat. He smarted under the conviction, that henceforth his authority among the crew would be small. Hitherto he had been the champion and bully of the quarter-deck, and although the crew had no liking for him, but rather a decided feeling of an opposite nature, yet strength and prowess always command a certain rude respect among sailors, and that respect he enjoyed. But now all was changed. He had been beaten, and that in a fair fight, where all could see that no underhand means had been employed. Strength had been matched against strength, and he had come off second best. That had been a Waterloo day to him, and he knew that he returned to the deck no longer the same man so far as consideration went.

[160]

Bill Sturdy was a generous antagonist. He had no idea of indulging in exultation over his vanquished foe, but treated him as if nothing had happened.

But Antonio's resentment was deep and implacable. He thirsted for revenge, and determined to lull to sleep the suspicions of his late opponent, until some op............