The Malay heard all this, and his eyes flashed and his teeth glistened as he threw himself into an attitude ready to receive his foes, his body bent forward, his right and left arms close to his sides, and his whole frame well balanced on his legs.
“Ready?” cried the captain.
“All ready!” was the reply; and I was so intent upon the fierce lithe savage that I forgot all about Jack Penny till I heard the men answer.
There was the whizzing noise of a rope thrown swiftly, and in an instant a ring had passed over the Malay’s body, which was snatched tight, pinioning his arms to his side, and Jack Penny came down with a rush on the other side of the fore-yard, drawing the savage a few feet from the deck, where he swung helplessly, and before he could recover himself he had been seized, disarmed, and was lying bound upon the deck.
“I didn’t mean to come down so fast as that,” drawled Jack, rubbing his back. “I’ve hurt myself a bit.”
“Then we’ll rub you,” cried the captain joyously. “By George, my boy, you’re a regular two yards of trump.”
The excitement of the encounter with the Malay being over, there was time to see to poor Jimmy, who was found to be suffering from a very severe cut on the head, one of so serious a nature that for some time the poor fellow lay insensible; but the effect of bathing and bandaging his wound was to make him open his eyes at last, and stare round for some moments before he seemed to understand where he was. Then recollection came back, and he grinned at me and the doctor.
The next moment a grim look of rage came over his countenance, and springing up he rushed to where the Malay was lying upon the deck under the bulwarks, and gave him a furious kick.
“Bad brown fellow!” he shouted. “Good for nothing! Hi—wup—wup—wup!”
Every utterance of the word wup was accompanied by a kick, and the result was that the Malay sprang up, snatched his kris from where it had been thrown on the head of a cask, and striking right and left made his way aft, master of the deck once more.