"Condor shook hands without saying a word, and then slipped away. I have seen many a fight since I first took to the sea, but never such a fight as this before. It were just a massacre of the innercents, and I don't think a fellow was ever more thoroughly sucked in than Master Condor when he undertook the job."
Condor had to go on the sick-list half an hour after the fight was over. His eyes were almost closed, his face was enormously swollen, and he had lost three teeth—the effect of the blow that had brought the conflict to a close.
"Did you know how it was going to be, Wilkinson?" one of the other seniors said as they went up on the deck again.
"I guessed pretty well, from what Blagrove was telling Sir Sidney when he dined with him, that Condor would meet his match, but I did not think that it was going to be a hollow thing like that."
"What do you mean, sir, by skulking below?" the second lieutenant angrily asked one of the midshipmen of his watch as he returned on deck.
"I just slipped below for a few minutes, sir," the lad said.
"Well, you had better be careful, or you will find yourself at the mast-head," the lieutenant said sharply.
"I fancy there has been a fight," the first lieutenant said as Mr. Knight passed him, grumbling to himself. "I noticed just now that there were only two midshipmen on deck. Do you see, they are coming up the hatchway, one by one, looking as innocent as a cat that has been at the cream-jug. They seem to be pretty nearly all here now, but I don't see any signs in any of their faces that they have been in trouble.
"Well, well, midshipmen are only boys, and boys will quarrel. I expect we both had our share of it before we got our epaulettes."
The other laughed. "I suppose so," he said; "and after all it does them no harm, and it is much better, if two boys do quarrel, that they should fight it out and have done with it, instead of always wrangling."