Jack stood motionless with his long legs wide apart, his hands clasped behind him, his shoulders hunched up and his chin thrust forward. He presented an uninviting aspect.
The sailor evidently appreciated this, and for a moment hesitated. Then he came forward again. But he picked a bad moment for his attack, for he rushed just as the deck rose.
There was a resounding “smack, smack,” the sailor staggered backward, upsetting two men behind him, staggered down the deck closely followed by Jack, and finally fell sprawling in the scuppers with his head jammed against the stanchion.
The two other men scrambled to their feet and, with their three companions, closed in on Jack; but the latter did not wait to be attacked.
He charged the group, hammering right and left, regardless of the thumps he got in return, and gradually drove them, bewildered by his quickness and heavy blows, through the space between the foremast and the bulwark.
Slowly they backed away before his battering, hampered by their numbers as they struck at him, until one man, who had the bad luck to catch two uppercuts in succession, whipped out his sheath knife.
Jack’s quick eye caught the glint of the steel just as he was passing the fife rail. He whipped out an iron belaying pin and brought it down on the man’s head. The man dropped, and as the belaying pin rose and fell, the other men drew back.
Suddenly a shot rang out. A little cloud of splinters flew from the mast near Jack’s head. Glancing forward. Jack beheld the leader emerge from the forecastle hatch and aim at him with a revolver. At that moment Jack was abreast of the uncovered main hatch. He had perceived a tier of grain bags covering the floor of the hold. He stooped, and with his hands on the coaming, vaulted over, dropped on the bags, picked himself up and scrambled forward under the shelter of the deck.
The hold of the ship was a single cavity. The forward part contained a portion of the outward cargo, while the homeward lading was stowed abaft the main hatch. There was plenty of room to move about.
For a moment after Jack dropped to this place of temporary refuge the air was thick with imprecations and the sound of angry stamping came to Jack’s ears. Hardly had he squeezed himself behind the stack of bales when a succession of shots rang out.