When the game had gone far enough, and the pallid pasty face of Yan Gratz was so suffused that it looked little less red than his nose or the blood upon his shirt, and his gasps for breath were become so short that they threatened to come no more at all, Monsieur Mornay threw his weapon down upon the deck and, breathing deeply, folded his arms and stood at rest.
“Mynheer,” he said, “it was a mistake to have begun. I am the best half-pikeman in France.”
The Dutchman blinked at him with his small pig-eyes, out of which the bitterness of his humiliation flashed and sparkled in a wild and vengeful light. The Frenchman turned his back to pass beyond the circle of grinning men who had not scrupled to hide their delight and admiration at his prowess in vanquishing their bully. But Gratz, whose exhaustion even could not avail to curb his fury, put all the small store of his remaining energy into a savage rush, which he directed full at the back of the retiring Frenchman. A cry arose, and Mornay would have been transfixed had not Cornbury intercepted the cowardly thrust by a nimble foot, over which the Dutchman stumbled and fell sprawling into the scuppers. The point of his weapon grazed the arm of Mornay and stuck quivering in the deck, a yard beyond where he had stood. Jacquard rushed to the prostrate figure in a fury at his treachery, but the man made no sign or effort to arise.
“By the ’Oly Rood! A craven stroke!” cried the captain, fetching the Dutchman a resounding kick, which brought forth a feeble groan. “Get up!” he roared. “Get up an’ go forward. Hods-niggars! we want none but honest blows among shipmates.”
Yan Gratz struggled to his feet and stumbled heavily down into the deck-house. Jacquard was grinning from ear to ear. If he had planned the combat himself, the result could not have been more to his liking. The favor of Billy Winch was no small thing to win, and Monsieur Mornay had chosen the nearest road to his heart. The captain, after hurling a parting curse at the Dutchman’s figure, slouched over to Mornay.
“Zounds! but ye ’ave a ’and for the pike, my bully. ’Ave ye aught o’ seamanship? If ye know your hangles, ye’re the very figure of a mate for Saucy Sally, for we want no more o’ ’IM,” and he jerked his finger in the direction taken by Yan Gratz.
Mornay laughed. “I’ve had the deck of a taller ship than Saucy Sally.” Billy Winch grasped Mornay by the hand right heartily.
“Come, what d’ye say? Me an’ Jacky Jacquard an’ you. We three aft. We’ve need o’ ye. Zounds! but ye’ve the useful thrust an’ parry.” Then he roared with laughter. “An’ I’m mistaken if ye’re not as ’andy a liar as a pikeman. I’ve seen the play of the best in the French Marine, and Captain René Mornay would have a word to say with ye as to who’s the best half-pikeman in France.”
Jacquard held his sides to better contain himself; his mouth opened widely and his little eyes were quite closed with the excess of his delight. Mornay and Cornbury smiled a little, and the Frenchman said, with composure:
“Perhaps. Monsieur le Capitaine Mornay and I are not strangers. But he holds his reputation so low and I mine so high, that I cannot bring myself to fight him.”